To the daughter I’ll never have:

You are so beautiful. I will hold you in my arms, scared you’d feel the soft tremor of my hands in the sight of your fragility. I will carry you despite such shakiness. And as you lay in my hold, I see a version of myself I couldn’t quite grasp before. I see you fully. I will do my best to protect that.

I will listen to your soft breathing as you sleep and attempt to match it, no matter how innocent yours and burdened mine. I will sing you lullabies of peace until the concept of war remains forever unlearned by you. You were never supposed to learn the truths of this world; you were just meant to stay in my embrace, far from the ugly–far from the bloodshed.

You will learn to braid your hair from a website tutorial and laugh at my face, for I do not know how to. I’ll never admit that the only reason why I avoid those tutorials is so I could hear you giggling as you style my hair. And I’d pray to all the deities that you don’t lose your hearty laugh. It would be my only source of air, after all.

I will cradle your flaws until you learn to love them as I do. The years of the life I’ve lived have seen numerous imperfections, and you are never one of them. I will never tire of reminding you.

I will be your best cheerleader until my legs give out.

I will wait patiently in times you need to remember your mother is not your enemy. I have gone through the same hatred, so I will wait by your locked door in silence, knowing you’ll want to see your mother with open arms when you learn to unlock it again.

I will swallow the lumps of my errors and not do so unto you. You are a reflection of me, but not me. I will not use my faults to release my anger onto you. I vow to shout–not at you, but with you.

I will not brave your cold with more; I will feed you the warmth I can offer. And when our days grow colder, I will remain steadfast until fire reaches us once more. I promise to bring you flame, even if it risks my own. Even if I am left frozen.

I will try to be a mother you’re proud to call yours.

But what I can’t promise is to be a mother you’ll have.

You don’t deserve to be born in a world this cruel. You don’t deserve the reality we’re in when you wholeheartedly deserve the light stories in the books you’d read. Full of fairies, rainbows, and stardust, compared to the truth that is anger, dictatorship, and corruption.

My economy is not enough to sustain the both of us. It tortures us females and turns the population against us. You don’t need to witness the losses we carry. You don’t ever need to feel the pain of said hardships firsthand. I cannot bring with me the guilt of bearing you while fully knowing this hurt.

But beneath my words on the cruelty of this world, is the quiet ache in my being that I cannot be a mother. I am far too weak for the strength required for a family. I am aware my stability is fragile enough to wound even my own self with its shattered glass.

I cannot survive myself, so who am I to wish for another?

I am not fit for motherhood in a society that doesn’t know how to nurture it. And I am not ready to be a mother in a body I don’t know how to hold.

So, my dearest daughter, I will never experience you, but know I love you. Too much for me to have you.

The Frontman