I Will Tell My Daughter

There will come a time when you tell your daughter that outward beauty is measured by soulful merit. There where will come a time when your daughter will tell you that the boys at school keep looking at her. And you will say, there attention is not worth yours. Eyes to gaze and predators to graze, my sweet darling, you are not to be the object of their games.

My sweet daughter, God has given you passion to find your purpose. God has gifted you a heart of doves and divine intuition to call you to your mission here. Your mission is not to be someone else’s eye candy. Your beauty cannot be measured in the depth of a man’s stare.

There will come a time when I tell my daughter that I was 14 and his hands tearing through my lace panties was unwelcome. But I bit my tongue and held my tears because he had given me his attention and for that I was indebted.

My sweet mother, God had given me passion to find my purpose. God gifted me a heart of doves and divine intuition to call me to my mission here. Yet you told me my mission was to be a siren. My beauty was measured by how many heads turned and how long a stranger would hold my gaze before licking his lips. My sweet mother, you fed me to the wolves – you called them to the table and announced that I was their next meal.

There will come a time when you tell your daughter that there is no scarcity of love in her world. Love is infinite and the well of cosmic love will never run dry. You will say, a fear of lack will end in lack, and a belief in abundance will result in abundance.

My sweet daughter, never believe that you need to make yourself small and quiet to be adored by men. Please never believe that if your hair is out of place, you must stay home. I want you to live loudly and boldly and to tell someone when something isn’t right. I want you to chase your talents to the horizon and never think twice about letting Mommy down because as long as your intentions are pure, I trust you. I trust you to know what is good for you.

There will come a time when I tell my daughter that my mother supported my abusers. She convinced me with an iron tongue and words strung together with no space to argue, that my worth was teetering because I wasn’t as pretty as I once was. That I had to compromise my values since the market for a proper husband was growing narrow for a woman like me.

My sweet mother, I believed that I needed to make myself small and quiet to be adored by men. I believed that if I had a hair out of place, I must stay home…and stay home I did. I lived silently and suffered boldly and held back from telling anyone when anything wasn’t right. I chased men to the horizon and I obsessed over letting you down because my intentions never mattered, you didn’t trust me anyway. You never trusted me to know what is good for me.

There will come a time when you tell yourself that it is time to stop living in fear.

There will come a time when I tell myself to live loudly.