TO MY BABY DAUGHTER a spoken word poem by Leslie B Patient
(performed at Ranney School V-Day 2020)
In the late evening twilight I hold you close, my baby daughter
You drink in the miraculous milk my body knows to make for you
I am your creator, your protector
Your tiny hand grips my finger
And I am taken aback by an ancient primal rage pulsing in my veins
My breath catches, my eyes widen
I am a lioness
A Mother Bear
And I am sure that if anything
Anyone should ever hurt you
I would kill them with my bare hands.
The feeling scares me at first
An ancient lineage of warrior queen mothers
Whispering in my ear
Will I be strong enough to shoulder
The weight of this responsibility
Will I, like Ceres, make the earth grow cold
If someone steals my Persephone
Will I, like Hecuba, stave off the Argive soldiers
To wrap my arms around my Cassandra
Will I, like Meena Kamal, sacrifice my own life
For my daughter’s right to freedom
You have supped full
Your eyes fluttering to sleep
And I bundle you tightly in your mint green blanket
As if fleece and white stars can protect you
And the flash of fear erupts again
Creating a wormhole in my mind
You are four years old
In the fountain on the eastside of the city
And the little girl you were playing with
Says you are weird
she doesn’t like you
she won’t play anymore
And your eyes are pools of sorrow
But I can’t make her be friends with you
You are nine years old
Swinging on a bannister
Then run to me holding your two front teeth
In your hand
And I know I cannot fix you
You are eleven
With the swagger of an independent soul
at the amusement park
You ride the coaster on your own
And when I get to the exit you are not there
And I panic
Circumnavigating the entire park
Only to learn you had gone back to take another ride
You are fourteen and the boy who said you had to prove your love
No longer answers your texts
Instead he calls you a slut to his friends
Who were your friends
And now they are not
And you cannot breathe
Or think
Or feel
For months
Until one night you say
“Stay with me, Mom, I’m afraid to be alone”
And for a moment you are my baby daughter, again
and the lioness in me wants to roar and bare her teeth
But I cannot tear the flesh from that boy’s bones
Even if I want to
Because it’s not his power anymore
But a deeper darkness inside you I must fight
When you are sixteen I stand and watch an ambulance take you
To some kind of safety
But too far away from my arms
And the emptiness is crushing
Because I had wanted to protect you
But I couldn’t
Then you are seventeen and we sit in a car and you are stoned
And you are raging
And you say “I Hate You With Every Part of My Being”
in a voice controlled by Satan or poison
You kick and punch
And I want to slap you
Instead
I hold you tight
Squeezing you in Mother Bear arms
And tell you that I love you
That you are my baby daughter
And I will not let the darkness take you
You grow limp as if that incantation is exorcism enough
For you to believe I will do everything in my power
To always keep you in the light
The wail of mothers from ancient dawn reverberate
In the black hole of my mind
They hear the cries of their daughters
Who are hurt
Harassed
Raped
Mutilated
Killed
Warrior matrons beating on burnished steel breastplates
Until our knuckles bleed knowing our only hope
Is to give you tools and strength to be warriors
Yourselves
and if you die in battle
At least we gave you the iron daggers to maim the enemy
Because your mother’s jaws of rage, her claws of vengeance are impotent
To the myriad powers against you
We can only slow them down with the strength of our hearts
But we must teach you that you are special
We must teach you to fight your own battles
We must teach you that you are strong
And no one has the right to make you feel small
But there you are again, my tiny baby daughter, snuggled in your crib
Your little belly breaths grow longer, deeper
And I look at you one last lingering moment
Feeling peace flood back in as I gaze at the calm
Of your pink alabaster face.
And I step quietly out of your room.
