This is a true story...My Sunday Morning Offering:
Parenthood (or What We Make)
If you are not completely selfless
Parenthood will teach you
How To Be
all the things
you never thought you could be
along with loneliness and the special haggard hunger of the exhausted
There will be days of paste
on your face -
dried yogurt and crushed raisins
discarded juice boxes and discarded plans -
Crazy sleep stealers will invade your bedroom
and make off with your sanity like pastel-clad cloud ninjas
whose hair smells like lavender and hope
At times your walls will feel like cardboard
and the kids will have played blocks
with your Leaning Tower of Pisa in the sink
and will have smeared Toddlerhood in your tresses
and pressed chaos into your chest
that once housed your personal dreams
which were shiny and refreshing like the cool ribbons of summer creeks
But now your adventures come with Disney tunes and taffeta
Matchbox cars and magic costumes
and when you collapse on the couch at the end of the day
because no way can you even *think* about making it to your bed…
PLEASE know that all this will end one day
and you tell yourself you can’t wait…
And then it does and you’re finally “free” and you’re dancing
under the moon and stars *where you belong*
the wild sky night that you have so long hungered for LIGHTS YOU UP
and you’re singing – no SCREAMING - along with friends and strangers in the mosh pit of survival
at the top of your still-young lungs
twirling like your toddlers once did to the godforsaken ‘Barney’
(“I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…”)
when your heart does a full stop:
because you see this couple in their twenties in front of you swaying to the music
their three-year-old running around on the green grass of the future
with the setting sun shining in his golden Tomorrow hair
softly illuminating all the perfect possibility in his nascent noggin’
and the whole world is wondering
“What’s he gonna be?”
And you think: “I once made one of those…”
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