Never Again - To My Daughter

When you have a daughter, your perspective changes.

Just eight weeks old with her in tow.

Half her life already without a home. Except that which she found within me. She's sitting up now, gurgling and blowing raspberries, my parma violet, my delicious baby and I want to say -

You are so sacred to me.

How little love I showed for this precious body of mine. The one that birthed yours, that provided sacred passage. I felt your head move down in my centre and you told me you were coming. The first true knowing I felt there. The power of it.

In my life, hands have pawed at me, and I in my hunger for love often mistook it for reverence. I learned early to dissociate at the first sign of revulsion or rage. Staring blankly radio static hovering above myself. Dancing pictures in my head of past tenderness to override... Rebrainwashed. Instrumental in my own downfall. Pouring my love into empty caverns where monsters lurked in the darkness.

Photographs from your cherished growing time, like a woman in a glass cage, begging to be seen. The anger, the invasion, the womb-deep ache and the betrayal of my inner self, that essence of me. That precious spark they could not find nor capture. Without my bonds I breathe in, send my roots down.

There will be those in your life who will want you, want you like a butterfly to pin to a board. Those hands that gently lure and entice you to follow. You cannot be blamed for dancing along with your open, loving heart. But I promise to you, never again will that be me. I want to radiate to you wholeness. A woman I hope you come to know once told me, what was promised to her by others she found within... You want to be rescued, yet how swiftly that rescue became ransom.

I cannot tell you what to look for, but I can show you how it looks to be alone. To stand in your power and feel within your belly all that you are. Only yourself to validate your worthiness, your beauty and your strength. Every touch on your skin that which is honest and true and welcome.

And when you are older, you may gently tease; mama sees wolves where there are only sheep. I wish I could gift you my knowing, because only now do I truly see. And it's too much to hope that hurt won't shape you, like it has shaped me. And really would I wish for life to touch you only lightly? For that is where the learning takes place.

Just please know that this woman has been brought so low she couldn't breathe. If I had a wish for you it would be - to realise you are complete with all that you are.

And I will show you, starting today.