Please

We got in a fight so she bought me flowers.

Granted they were ugly flowers, a bouquet of daisies dyed bright, and I am fairly certain Bryan actually bought them, but I know she picked them out so they were the most beautiful flowers ever and I wanted to eat the heads off each one I was so happy.

These days I find myself wanting to eat the heads off things more often than usual, equal parts in anger and in love. My love so thick I wonder if it's possible to love something too much, how quick I feel mean, her shoulders thin beneath my hands. Last night it was a Girl Scout party. I knew we shouldn't have gone. She was too tired from sailing, but we went, and when I threw away the paper ghost from the top of her cupcake she lost it and was mean so yes, I was mad. And mean. You hate me, she said, you always hate me, and I felt sliced through, as if nothing I do will ever be enough. Even now, writing this down after a night of sleep and a bouquet of daisies dyed bright, the fact that she said those words makes me feel like something dead. I don't hate you, I would never hate you. Right away I said all the words I am supposed to say. I love you with everything I am and even when I am mad at you I love you. That's what loving someone means, I told her, that you are able to be angry with them and still love them. I tripped over the words, said them backwards and forwards because if there is one thing I want her to be sure of it is that she is loved. Is loveable and loves herself. Pleasepleaseplease, let her know that. Let us both know that love is, by its very nature, thick and never spiteful.

And now it is today and she has already gone to another party where she kept the paper bird from the top of her cupcake which I did not throw it away. She has forgotten but tonight I will still slip into her room to kiss her eyelids as she sleeps.

First grade school picture. How could I not?