My Daughter

The fluorescent light over my head twitches and hums like a bug,
and beside me an abstrusely thin line of water,
patters down into the imposturous porcelain bathtub beside me,
just enough to be able to circle around the drain and wane away like an exhaling chest,
I think of turning the faucet so that it creaks and groans as it closes like muscles that are too tight to move,
it must've been left open a little all night, but I know that the unwelcoming metal will dig into my hand,
and the ligaments and tissues of my palm will burn and stretch like plastic in a fire,
so I do not move.
The girl waddles in, bare feet slapping the gashed tile,
the light prattles on, twittering like someone had asked it to sing vibrato,
it is inconsolable.
She squats on the toilet in front of me without concern, unaware of her own bravery,
the fat in her thighs smashed onto the porcelain spreads out like butter,
she doesn't mind,
she scrunches up her face, clenching her toes,
small, soft grunts come out of her mouth
as she hunches over,
and I realized how natural of a thing it really is,
and how unaffected and artless, pure and untaught she is,
and like knowing that you'll never be younger than this,
I wanted to padlock her away, so that no one could taint this,
I didn't want her to slowly realize that people aren't always what they seem,
that the universe isn't always good,
that one day she'll stop holding my hand when I walk her to the bus stop,
that one day someone will steal something of her's and she'll be told that life is just unfair,
that one day her dog will die and she won't get to say goodbye,
that one day boys will grab her knee like it's their's,
that one day her parents will die because of a drunk driver and she will have to arrange the funeral,
that one day someone will break her heart and hopefully nothing else,
but then she wouldn't know that the universe can be good,
that one day she gets to choose her favorite flower, and she'll choose daisies because they're so happy,
that one day she'll share her lunch with a little girl and she will become her best friend and they'll share ice cream and smiles and fears,
that one day she'll hear a song on her car radio that times itself flawlessly to the sunset and she'll weep and know how good this life is,
that one day she'll write a story about all the good and bad things that had happened to her and maybe I'll play a role in the good,
that one day she'll be running around singing show tunes and kissing our cheeks, and then she'll say I love you before we get in the car,
and that one day she'll be ardently and irrevocably loved by someone, in the type of way I could never love her as a mother,
so she climbed off the toilet and into my lap,
and I looked at my daughter in all her naivety of life,
like the rain that doesn't know why it falls in the spring,
and I held her tight like you should do,
to all beautiful things.

-anna sluder

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