Do you fear being shot, beaten, tattooed with a branding iron?

I wish my daughter were ten years old again when I could save her from the bully who pulled her hair or when it was easy to abandon her to have her sulks. By the time she was sixteen, she was not to be trusted. The fact is this: the author, the poet, the creator, had never existed in her life; I was simply, dad.

My daughter is an exceptional beauty, no longer living in the shadows of the demented schoolgirl, needing her fantasy. She had quickly entered the real world of femininity, showing a nipple, trickling a tear, knowing her wickedness. Boys came and went, adoring them at first. I wanted to warn these young, not so innocent victims: beware her ferocious smile.

By eighteen, she ate poetry, spat on knowledge, and hugged her self-pity. I was aware — without being afraid — she could be a menace to society. She would live in a world like a sleepwalker, never knowing or understanding what she has done until woken.

At twenty, she met men in bars, attacked the idea of romance, having hopes, and regrets. I didn’t know what she wanted, but it was clear it had nothing to do with me. Whenever she seemed depressed, I would follow her into strange, complicated adventures, on and on, into good and evil, love and hate; but I knew I would always be an essential part of her world.

I write notes and put them in my pocket, the slightest notion, the first silence, and since they are always coming, day and night, I search for scraps of paper, the rubber band, the peashooter, the marble, the penknife all hidden in my garment but never touching my skin directly.

I carry a note in my pocket about what I imagined I’d ask my daughter’s first love, and read it to myself on the day of her marriage:

Do you fear being shot, beaten, tattooed with a branding iron? And what do you want to be IF you fucking grow up?

I’m convinced that several lifetimes would not — could not — exhaust the lover. If the experiences I write about seem born of pain, they surely were, but the compensation — not always evident at the time — overrides the sorrow and self-pity. I enter into each new decade with trust, convinced that something I want badly enough — or believe with everything of my heart — will work out beautifully; so beautiful it cannot be described in words.

My daughter is evidence enough.