If I should have a sister, let her be filled with wonder, pulling her from the wall and filling her with enough curiosity to kill the cat. Because I know her to be a dog person, with a dogmatic personality. Always offering both of her hands to the world, but I’ll take her hands and tattoo the world upon them, so she’ll have to travel the globe before she can say “Oh, I know that like the back of my hand.”

And she’s going to learn the world is big and full of people who will steal pieces of her heart, but I’ll tell her to call me a map, pinpricking her finger to my heart so she knows that “home is where the heart is” and my heart is hers. There will be times when she’s gonna get hurt because love is hard, and growing up is hard, and life is hard. There are problems that can’t be fixed with poetry and band-aids but once she realizes that the bridge is already burned, I’ll be there to let her know she won’t have to re-build it herself because no matter how many times you swing across the monkey bars— your shoulders will only be strong enough to hold your own problems.

And “Baby Girl” I’ll tell her, keep your eyes facing forward because anyone who walks past you without falling for your wonder-filled eyes is not worth falling for. But I know she’ll fall anyway, tripping over the water hose she left out from running through the sprinkler to mask her tears.

Because somewhere among her adolescent years she learned that you don’t cry, big girls don’t cry, don’t cry.

When the bridges seem to be crumbling beneath your feet, when you end up with a broken heart and bruised soul, when the very people you’ve been modeling yourself after start to melt into the person you’ve been running from, remember that you have a map to get back home— that you have band-aids and poetry to mend your spirit. And when those same people that pushed you off the monkey bars show up at your door, when they shove disappointment on billboards and cruelty on radio stations, when they laugh at the calluses and muscles gained from living life to its fullest- you stick out your tongue and wiggle your fingers. I want you to know that you are colorful, a dawn breaking over the horizon but don’t you ever break down over a lesson learned. Life will sweep you off your feet, wait for you to regain your balance, just to kick you down again. Don’t ever lose your wonder, your caring soul and big heart that are always yearning for more. And if you go back to those monkey bars, swing across one more time— reaching your hands out to touch the galaxies before you and if someone comes along and tries to knock you down, you tell them that they really ought to meet your sister.