i want to be good

i want to be good

to wake up to warm blueberry sugar crust, light dappling our arms, fingers still interlocked

i want my children to feel brave;

compelled to create, steadied by full bellies and constant intrigue about the parts of the world they do not yet know

because they deserve to find what makes them ache, leap

i want to shake and wheeze by the bank of some rippling body of warm water because my best friend is so damn funny

i want to force you see the bright side, and to let go of the things that aren’t real, even if i need to arm wrestle or make a power point

i want to know you’re drinking water, well fed, immersed in a life people who don’t let you get away with shit

like giving up or surrendering the inconvenient things, those things that are also sacred and vital

because you deserve to be seen

i want to do the hardest things, fall apart, and put myself back together again, with and without you

and to be strong enough to walk away from shiny pretty things that do not serve me

i want to stand on the front lines when the people i love feel threatened or maligned

to drive with my foot on the dashboard and coffee in one hand, even in my stick shift, because that is correct

to be delighted for true company, and at home in deep solitude

i want the grandkids to play tag before dinner

leaves in their hair

i want bustling thanksgiving tables with family and friends from every phase of our lives coming together to toast l’chaim

i want a forever home with apple trees i planted finally bearing fruit, to be plucked by generations of hollering, laughing, wild humans who will grace the earth after i am long gone,

a legacy.

i want a good sentence, a perfect coffee, a killer chord progression -

the kinds that make me exhale, grab my heart and
i want to run down the hall with my eyes wide and show them to you

reading and mindlessly doing that graceful thing with your fingers, swishing them back and forth

i want to lie face up in some green place, where love is with us after all these years

still

my hands running through your hair under the protection of the sun that is ours

i am not remotely surprised by any of it

because we deserve to be seen