When I become a mother
I will not tell my daughter how bad love hurts
I will not tell her that every time you inhale your lungs fill with helium instead of oxygen and you transcend so far off beyond yourself the only pieces you have left are the ones you’ve recollected on your way back home
I will not tell her that every argument will feel like a landmine and every space apart will feel like a fire
licking all parts of her aching bones and skin till every muscle is tense with reaching
I will not tell her that sometimes these land mines are better than the machine-gun first kisses and butterfly-winged silent jitters
she will have guns in her heart because love is lethal at its summit
and she will learn that when she picks glass from her knees and tendons from her teeth