While you were hating yourself,

my daughter had a cut-out dress that she decided to make into her Christmas outfit.

It had a gap in the top, so she fashioned to sew it with the only sewing string we have: sanguine and brilliant against the white sheet she formed over her body with a rudimentary belt.

She was careful with the needle as she wove it in and out and between the fabric–

so close to the bone-white virtuosity of her skin.

This is the first dress I have ever made

She was proud and swaying with the movement of the cloth,

fingering her long-standing loose tooth and looking down at her handi-work.

Her brothers stood around her in awe of what two hands can do; their wheels were turning.

And the little blue handles of their kid-safe scissors emerged so that

twenty minutes from that moment, they too could share their own creations:

a melee of scraps and un-useables into something that defined them,

while you were hating yourself.

And I am just so sorry,

that you have never known this kind of love.