Hope you’ll say I was simple. Tenacious. That I would chew my own bones to keep my teeth sharp. That I would make soup for a sick vulture. That some evenings I would circle you, like a choice, and fall asleep.

Tell them how we’d walk together, a bouquet of wild footsteps. Tell them about the good mornings: when I’d boil you an egg or when I’d tuck a kiss in your pocket or hold a lighthouse between our hands. Tell them I did my best.

You wonder why I bite a lie right out of you. Why I smother you in a mother’s temper before yours ignites. Why you are having trouble breathing, why ashes are streaming down your cheek. Child. You and I are divine, we are sacred. We are sacrifices, we are legends, proof of prayer, protectors; but first we are small explosions, so fallen we can't tell sky from being kicked.

Will you believe me - that I can’t help but raise you like a rescue? Sometimes you sing the song I made you with and all I hear are sirens. I see you cower the way I cower and I cower again, because there are so many ways to ruin you. I think: how was I, a foolish, reckless girl, given such an important thing to tend to? How can I, an ordinary woman, celebrate or be celebrated?