Heart Project

1) Write her a love letter: mail it to her childhood home. Address the envelope to her folks. Call them by first name. 2) Call them up. Ask if they’ve read the damn thing. Ask approval to send the letter to their youngest daughter, who woke you up to all this light. Have them mail it back to you. This way, they know where you live. 3) And don’t tell her about these little anecdotes. 4) There will be artifacts in your room: reminders of distance, of flames. Scour them from their hiding places. Forgive yourself. 5) Don’t give yourself room to breathe. Make yourself small for her: let her hold you like a lit, paper match. 6) Pull out your sharpest teeth. Surrender them to garden soil. Dedicate your life to keeping whatever crawls out of the carnage-vines alive. 7) Give your future daughter a name. Make the world a welcome home for her. She will be beautiful. She will be half of you. 8) Tell that half to love itself. 9) Tell the other half to love itself. 10) She will love you with a heart full of wolves. Thank her mother everyday for the heart in her side. Thank her for the wolves: how they fight with last blood for what is theirs.