The things I would go back to tell you,
I would crawl under the dark bed with you where you hid and tell you to exhale your gentleness temporarily out of you in readiness for what is yet to come.

I would tell you that they couldn’t take your birth right to dream, or the madness and tenacity you will discover within yourself to clasp onto barbed wire between numbness and maniacal fury.

They couldn’t take your roaring laugh, the vibration of the sound of freedom.

I would tell you that you will never let yourself be silenced. That you will make a living out of the voice they can’t take.
They also can’t take your love.

I would tell you that you didn’t need what you thought you did, you were in bloom, in warm-up for many bouts where each brawler would truly meet their match. That you were your own rescue jet- ripping through the clouds to come save you.
That it would make no sense for anyone else to do that job,
it would take them many jets…

I would tell you to get up off of your knees,
Not for God, not for men, not for forgiveness, not in defeat. I would tell you that a pause is not a knockout.
I would take you out of the ring.

I would tell you that there are many moments that will take your breath away, not wind you. They will look like sunshine pouring through windows, waking up next to your sister, that welling feeling in your heart growing past the point where it feels like it will explode out of your chest for the sheer excitement of seeing faces that you love, moments upon moments that become familiar, blankets and conversations and biscuits and long hugs and music and paintbrushes.

I would tell you that you will continue to move through life with the same toddler clunkiness of your disproportionately big baby head on tiny feet, even when you hope to move with grace, but grace is not what it took to build this, so clunk away and let roaring laughter be the sound of your trophy.

I would tell you that we couldn’t do this any differently. We meet each moment with only what we have for it then, that it’s hard to master a skill set when you’ve had to learn so many.

I would tell you that peaches don’t whither just because someone doesn’t like them.