sunshine manifesto

I want peace of mind.
To restore my childhood dreams.
I want to touch my father’s cheek and hear his laughter. One day I will see him again & he will not be hurt, he will not be empty, he will not be broken.
One day I will meet my mother again. She will be sixteen, & larger than life, without guilt, without the voice of her own mother gnawing, born again from a past in which she always was nourished, always wanted, always loved.
She will, again, be my best friend.
One day I will sit, smiling, at the table of that beautiful, impossible family, in which brothers & sisters really are part of one big project, & really care. No one feels left out here. We’re all one, and dad is healthy, happy. And we love one another.
One day I will wake up and not feel intimately wounded. I will be new, sweet & happy as cotton candy.
Uncle would never have played mom-and-dad with me. Would have never hurt me.
Then he could still be in our family, I could still love him. No one would be disappointed. He wouldn’t be a ghost somewhere in East Germany.
I wouldn’t feel, in my innermost being, like damaged goods.
I want peace of mind, so that one day I can fall in love for the first time again, & not cry my heart out because my best friend, my love, my partner in crime, in fishing, cooking, canoeing without sunscreen, gardening, wading around stingrays, barbequeing under a Florida sunset surrounded by mosquitoes ... doesn't love me that way —
Peace of mind so I can fall in love sweetly, surrendering my tenderest flank without being left alone in this love –
I want my heart,
my heart,
my heart,
my heart.
One day the mad wheel in my head will stop. The chatter that blinds me to my surroundings will be silenced, and I will be larger than myself, than all the selves I’ve ever been.
I want to sleep in my mother’s heart.
I want to hold my first child in my arms and smell his soft head.
Be queen for a day, every day, to someone who will see me as I am, and see to me, as long as he can—someone who will volunteer to drown in sorrow when I die, for whom I will look sweetly forward to my death, if he leaves first.
Someone in whose light I can take root and grow.
I am going to wake up one day to hear a voice inside myself that will calm me down, deliver me from fear, sing me a lullaby.
Maybe it will be my own sweet mother, sleeping, curled up, inside my heart.
I want to be a little girl again and love in that light way of butterflies: giving away older sisters’ stolen love letters, with their beautiful script, in exchange for pink watches, chewing gum, stickers, erasers, lip gloss, pink rubber bracelets. To be again in the sweet trade of friendship.
One day I will wake up and be as small and fat as I was when I dreamt of purple Morning Glory flowers on my kindergarten teacher’s desk.
From the altar, the Virgin of Fatima will open her eyes as I sing in the church choire. She’ll give me a secret smile, finally — the one I looked out for every Sunday at Mass from my ninth to my tenth birthday.