Before dawn

What is it…

That gives me the right of opinion over everyone’s life, but my own?

What makes the winds and tides – that I am made of; the ones that are meant to carry me – feel like they are drowning me each day?

What makes me scream “Why me?” in the face of adversity almost as if to wish it on my brothers and sisters instead?

When I feel the world turn its back on me, who have I turned mine on right then?

What if the first taste of the earth that each one gets is a cloth cut from one’s very own spirit?

If the world is so unforgiving, how dare I sit and watch it continue without building a better one for my daughter?

If the world is so cruel, how dare I sit and watch it continue without building a better one for myself?

Because if I am only building for her, what about my own existence?

How will I radiate light onto her if all I ever do is exist in a familiar darkness?

I would say that she deserves a better chance at life, better opportunity, a better worldly view.

But before she makes her way to me, I need to sit and meditate on how to mend the cup that she is to drink from.

I hope to welcome all my sons and daughters into a world that lets in more sunlight, more forgiveness and boldness, unashamedly too.

And so I need to recollect, regroup and ask myself…

How come it is not an unwritten rule?

That all these things that I want in time for your arrival, I desperately deserve on each of my dawns too.

As a daughter, I did 24 years ago.

And as mother, I still do today.