To my future daughter

Do not take me for granted
As I did my mother
If you forsake me
As I did mine
Those clothes will lay and lay
In that filthy, little hamper
That has every penny of
My money in each thread

To my future daughter
Do not spit on me
The only water that
You should ever intentionally
Place on my body are
The salt-filled tears
That falls from your eyes
To the cotton fabric
On my shoulder

To my future daughter
Do not ignore me
There will be men
Whether it is your father
Boyfriend, ex, or best friend
Who will betray you
And make you feel unwanted
You will not take this out on me

To my future daughter
Do not hate me
I will be alpha
And you will despise every syllable
That comes out of my mouth
You will think I am ruining your life
You will swear to me that
As soon as you can leave me
You will

To my future daughter
Do not misguide yourself away from me
People are like asphalt
I am a meadow
When you trust in people and
You start to fall, you will only land
Hard and you will get up hurt
When you trust in me and
You start to fall, I will protect you
You will get up with only a harmless stain
On the back of your shirt

To my future daughter
Do not hide from me
You will learn before you even
Experience it that life sucks
You will want to take everything
Wrong and place it on your shoulders
You will bottle all of your feeling up
And lock them in a safe far from where
Anybody else could find them
You will try everything in your power
To try to not talk to me

To my future daughter
Do talk to me
I am your mother
And from the day you will be born
All I will ever have wanted is for you to love me
I want to be your best friend

To my future daughter
Do trust me
You will have yourself convinced
That I don't understand anything you're going through
And I can promise you now, I do
You will not believe me at times but
I really will only want the best for you
And I will give you all of my strength just to
Reassure you that everything will be alright

To my future daughter
Do love me
Understand that I can and will use everything
I have to convince you to not grow up
To not leave me when you turn 18
To never let you stray too far away from me
Because you will be the white in my teeth
And the smile on my face
You will be my morning sunrise
And my evening sunset

To my future daughter
Do engage yourself with me
Let me fix your hair
Let me watch your favorite movies with you
Let me help you with your homework
Let me practice with you for your big game
I will try until the day I die
To be someone you feel you can always count on

To my future daughter
Do count on me
It's my job to always be
The shoulder you have to cry on
To always is the comfort in the lullaby
To always be the person you come to
When you have a nightmare
I will be the one that you can trust to hold
Your biggest secrets and be the one
Who will tell you the truth of your beauty

To my future daughter
Do follow your heart
You will be wild, and you will be a rule-breaker
You will be the fierce fire fueled by other flames
Your good times will be mountain tops
And your bad times will be trenches
You will be beautiful, reliable, fearless, and great
A lover, a fighter, a leader, a life-saver
You will be nothing but all of the above
You will think nothing of yourself
You will never feel what your truly are, amazing

I guess you truly are your mother's daughter