The day you take your first steps,
wobbly, unsteady, stumbling,
I will smile at you.
I will take in every inch of you,
every part of you that is my own,
because from this day on,
I will be teaching you that this world is cruel.
You will be born into my skin.
When you realize that this is not only a promise,
but a threat, you will only be in grade school.
I once imagined the world would one day be consumed
by robots and machines but instead,
it is the same people who have been fed
with a silver spoon their entire lives.
Some glass ceilings are just too high to shatter.
While I write this letter, I think about
how the days have been getting warmer.
I think about the world outside my window,
and I wonder if you will see what I see.
Scientists say it will take 50 years until all
our resources will be wasted.
That fact alone makes me regret picking
weeds from the ground and calling them
“flowers.”
To my future child,
I hope you sleep soundly knowing you
survived another day of school.
Technology can evolve. Perhaps,
breakthroughs will happen.
The planet will heal. Maybe love will
finally triumph over everything else.
Everything I’ve come to know.
But your tired eyes will tell me, “When will this end?”
“How much time is left?”
“If God is real, why hasn’t he saved us?”
My love,
there will be a war raging outside
and the only thing I can do is
turn out the big light. Please hug your teddy,
say a prayer even if you haven’t been baptized.
My love,
the world might be ending but you are
my magnum opus. You are the most
beautiful thing I would ever have
the privilege to see, and it saddens me
to think I will never even get to meet you.
How selfish of me would it be to let you
step one foot on this land? How unfair
to let you dip your toes in the water
only for you to be dragged in? What kind of
parent would I be? To let you experience
life when this is all there is to it.
Ten years from now,
I will be grieving over the loss of you.
You were the dream that stayed constant
in my thoughts, but you would never thrive here.
In my head, you are the kindest human being.
You have my eyes. You have my smile.
I will never know how it feels to have
your tiny hand in mine and maybe it is
better this way, to never meet you instead
of having to lose you. But I love you.
I will always love you.
