I can recall those lost, lonely nights,
before you were born.
I thought about nothing.
Dumb things.
And I watched TV without much thought.
I can think about life before your arrival,
but I haven’t really any sense of what that was.
I always told your mother that you were an angel,
and I fished you out of Heaven.
Because the truth is,
I needed you here.
Not to impart trauma.
Not to make you angry.
Not to hate somebody smaller than myself.
I had enough of that before you were born.
You made me braver, wiser, less stupid.
I can think, and it is clearer.
There aren’t dumb things and smart things.
It’s all smart now, with your clarity.
It all has purpose.
Before I reeled you in from Heaven,
I had nothing to my name.
Except for the shame of somebody else’s failure.
I had their trauma. I had their pain.
But your eyes, and your hands, and your little toes–
It all let go.
Now even when I stay up late and watch TV,
(you like to ask: why do you stay up so late sometimes?)
I think about you, and your mother, and your sister.
And our future.
Because we have one,
and as I try to wash away my trauma,
pain that I caused in ignorance and guilt,
I think of you, and your eyes, and your hands–
and your little toes.
Everything lets go.
