1. someday you’ll ask why your daddy and i are different colours —
not because you ever noticed, but because someone else did.
i’ll have to explain to you that the electromagnetic spectrum
is thousands of kilometers and we’re just little parts of it
and love is colour blind
even though nothing else
is.

2. the first time you look at a billboard
and understand the lettering will be the
best moment in your life. i promise i will teach you the parts
of speech: you are a verb. your actions
are adjectives. your thoughts are nouns. your life is one
long sentence you will never
fully understand.

3. one day you will wake up
after the worst day of your life and wonder
how there is a day after. there will be a
day after. there will also be a week, and
a year, and a lifetime after. your pain
will not be beautiful and
it will not stop
the planets and you will realize
there is more to you than yourself
and that’s exactly how it should be.

4. you can be anything you want (i
promise the only people who say otherwise
are people who have
already decided they want to be assholes).

5. one day i will make you look at your hand for
part of you exploded into the sky
before anyone had dreamed up science.
you were a tongue of fire
that sliced up the galaxies
and exploded a thousand
times over into the celestial bodies.
you will feel your body explode a thousand times over
and somehow, despite that, you will still make a universe
of all your recycled matter.

6. some day you will hate me
and you will scream and beat your fists against
every wall of every house of every home
your father and i will try to build.
you will bleed questions and sob apologies
and you will ask why. the only answer there is
is that some day you will see
it’s worth it.