Dear Mom, 

1. You dropped seeds of rosebush from your tongue and let me grow in the warm

cave of your love. You were the light I grew towards.

 

2. You did not pick me when I bloomed, instead you let me flourish. When winter

came, and I began to wilt, you let me learn to be humble.

 

3. I was 3 when you slept on the couch and I slept on your stomach. You were my

first bedroom. I haven't heard your heartbeat since.

 

4. You planted the willow tree in the front yard, it grows every time it rains.

Sometimes you weave love letters in between the branches. You think that

I throw them away.

 

5. You coughed up bedtime stories minutes before midnight, talked about how 

you dangled your legs off of the Empire State. You said that was the moment

you realized that clouds were just smoke that hasn't got dirty yet. That night,

you told me to grow up. That night, I started drinking coffee.

 

6. We ate dinner together a few weeks ago. I told you I was leaving on Father's

Day. You said you would drink to my memory.

 

7. Growing up, my fingers were hummingbird beaks. To this day, you still let

your hands be honeysuckles; we ate honeysuckles on long road trips and now

you smoke unfiltered cigarettes on long road trips.

 

8. You broke 12 ribs to give me the air from your lungs when I couldn't breathe.

You still haven't paid your medical bill, but it makes up for the ballons you never

got me for my birthday.

 

9. You gave me the porcelain china you kept in hiding because I hated playing

tea with mason jars and flower pots.

 

10. Your hair turned white when I was born. You loved me enough to lend me

your youth. I think I've used it all up by now.

                                                             

                                                                       Your loving daughter,

                                                                        Isabel