I. i wish you’d stop apologizing for me. i’m sick of feeling like i was born an apology. 

II. i know you’d never intentionally hurt me. but you have, you do, and you will.

III. i know you have the rare gift of seeing the angels inside of us, and that your first instinct is to hold those angels close and shelter them. but you need to let us go. you need to give us room to be individuals who experience pain and make mistakes. 

IV. i know i have, do, and will hurt you, too. i’m sorry. 

V. i learned a while ago that the less i told you i loved you, the less you’d yell at me. so i stopped saying it. 

VI. i love you.

VII. sometimes i hear your stubbornness in my own voice and fear i will grow to sound just like you. it took me a while to find my own voice, but it’s here, and i’m learning to be loud. 

VIII. i used to put my headphones on, hang my neck off the edge of my bed, let the tears roll up my head and wish i had a different mother. i don’t anymore.

IX. thank you for all that you’ve done. thank you for nursing us with chunks of your heart. for continuing to feed us even when you felt like there was none of you left. thank you for loving me even when you didn’t want to. thank you for emptying yourself so we could crawl inside. thank you for never giving up. thank you for somehow finding the light within us and reflecting it back at us when all we felt was darkness. thank you for molding me into who i am today.