A Letter To My Husband: How To Love Our Daughter

You must be her father

So she doesn’t find you at the bottom of a bottle.

I don’t want her to search for

Daddy’s kisses in the mouths of

One night stands. She mustn’t see your proud

Eyes in the face of a man staring at her

Breasts.

I want your daughter,

Our daughter—to hold hugs in a body

Not broken by rejection. You must love her

So she doesn’t look for you in pearled blunts and

Get lost in smoke clouds of nonexistent

Family dinners. I don’t want her to use sex in

Place of your phone calls, and flirt with undesevering

Men pretending it’s innocent affection.

Love our daughter baby. Love her so she doesn’t have to love

Strangers and sleep alone in her heart.

Love our daughter. Make sure she knows

How a man should treat her.

Don’t let boys use her back as their cutting board.

Carving insecurities deep into the back cage of her ribs.

Don’t let them use my baby’s arms to hold your place.

She shouldn’t overdose on muggy

Cologne and five o’clock shadows when

Remembering your smile.

Don’t let false teeth grip her

Bare when she tries to speak of your

Gray hair. I don’t want to see her die of a

Battered spirit because men she

Called daddy never held her hand.

A car crash of tricycles and chicken pox

Shouldn’t be replaced with

Abandonment and lonely kisses.

Don’t let tears

Fall for a boy who was never you.

Don’t make my baby girl desperate.

A mother’s love is never

Enough for a daughter with no man to hold

Hands strong. Protection isn’t provided

Outside of the womb. So you must be her

Wind to carry shattered wings out of hell.

She still fits perfectly under your arm.

So let her rest cheeks on your chest.

Hold her. So boys don’t trap our daughter in

Catacombs of sexual abuse and disappointment.

She shouldn’t find truth in every

Sad song and cry when she’s alone.

Make my baby strong.

Don’t let her be me.


--Gaby