Thank You

This poem is a list –

I’ll keep it short and sweet –

Of why I’m grateful for you,

Starting with your feet,

Thank you for teaching me

My long toe is a beauty mark,

And for turning on the lights

Each morning in the dark.

Thank you for bringing cookies

And warm milk in bed.

Thank you for the braiding practice

In the mess atop your head.

Thank you for renting movies

And making pizza on Friday nights.

Thank you for your candor

When speaking of your fights

Thank you for sharing 

Your family and your house,

Where I always kept myself

As small and quiet as a mouse.

Thank you for teaching me

To put others’ needs before my own,

And to always take the blame,

Even now that I am grown.

Thank you for the moments

When love was true and real,

And for the ones that broke me,

For I learned how to heal.

Thank you for the lessons

In how a parent should not be,

For love is never conditional,

But safe, unbound, and free.

Thank you for the exile,

Though it tortures me today.

I would not be my truest self

Were I permitted to stay

Thank you for showing me

Some people never change.

I’ll stop waiting for a miracle,

Though your stagnancy seems strange

Thank you for your silence,

And the space so I may see

That forgiveness is a gift

For no one else but me.

But, should you find the courage

To face what’s long been true,

I will lay aside my grievances

And build a bridge to you.

From the Guides of the Hidden Realms Oracle