Dear Future Daughter: You Can Be Both Beauty And The Beast

I want my future daughter to know she should never fuck someone who only wants her with the lights off.

I want my future daughter to know that she is lights on. A thousand galaxies exist between her palms. She is lights on. Cracks and marks. I hope she wears badges in spotlights, her bruises never to be covered with makeup. Or, if she wants, to go ahead and paint an entire gallery across her cheeks. Because she can damn well be the beauty and the beast. Both can coexist. You do not have the sun without first waiting in the dark.

I want my future daughter to know her mother has clawed her way out of graves so that she could be here. So when everything feels like a torrential downpour, remember all rain must stop. That love is even more powerful than death. And at times, we all become the monsters under beds. Remember how misunderstood creatures can be, that even saints have skeletons hiding in closets.

I want my future daughter to know there isn’t a singular path I expect her to follow. I know she will lose herself again and again, and this is not a result of failure. This is a result of living. Of losing and trying and evolving.

I want my future daughter to know she is not just something to be seen. Men and women may gather to study her existence, and still, she shines for no audience.

She shines because it is what she does.
She shines because it is who she is.