Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you to the trees, and stars, and hot salty tears,
And my childhood guardians who let me hold on to their thighs so that I got my daily
touch.
Thank you to the women who held me through my pain.
To Libby and Linnea and Laura and Allison and Amy and all of the other names that don’t start with L’s or A’s.
Thank you watermelon red bite juice
for dribbling down my summer chin
Thank you dad
for reading us the same Christmas book every Christmas eve
your consistency infused my bones with love and safety and there is no greater gift I have ever received than your guidance and care.
Thank you body,
for somehow knowing how to turn ice cream into heartbeats and thoughts
and for having the intuitive sense to tell me when enough is enough.
Forcefully, when needed.
How my veins don’t burst when stretched is a miracle, as all of you is, every day.
Thank you Demetra
you golden hearted beauty
with eyes like winter ice piles and skin as soft and warm as a baby’s intent.
Your existence dances me open every day,
I can’t wait to raise children with you.
Thank you New York for teaching me
how badly I never want to live in New York.
Thank you food thank you music,
thank you every illicit drug I ever did that taught me what too much felt like.
Thank you to the resiliency of my young body that could somehow live off slushies and dollar-slice-pizza
how I somehow didn’t get melanoma after endless summers of skateboarding with friends for 12 hours a day is beyond me.
Suppose I photosynthesize.
Thank you Colin, for helping me learn young that I would never grow up to abuse my power over younger men
Thank you Queen Elizabeth Park and your scratched up surfaces
I will never assume that something is concrete before I touch it again
Thank you to the wisdom of my emotions that have
guided me
over and over
beyond my stubborn, society-and-strength-and-male-conditioned mind
and for the times that I have awoken in tears
deep guttural belly tears –
Imagine that – waking up sobbing because our bodies know better than our minds,
as they always will.
How could it be any other way?
And last but not least
thank you to you
Whether you are my mother, blood or surrogate,
A lover, past or present,
Someone who found me by searching the words ‘how to help out during my girlfriends period’ or ‘why shouldn’t I kill myself’ or ‘how to write a love letter that will make my partner cry’ or ‘ways to communicate with my wife better’…
what a beauty you are
thank you for your immense heart
thank you for your courage, for your desire to be a more loving more courageous more full you
Your existence is a love letter to the world, and I am so glad you are alive to read these words,
you absolute gift of a person
