Punctuation

2

I love your love for me.
And how fast it grew.

Not possibly as much as my father does,
But coming closer than I realized.

I love the way you protect me.
And all of the ways in which you care.

Because while

You're compensating for a loss,
A loss I could never help you un-lose.

For two years, you have raised me.
Within those cinderblock walls of an empty-hearted nation.

For two years, you have watered my smile,
Encouraged it to carry on like sunflowers and daisies.

For two years, you have sewn what good things exist in this world and beyond all I can see,
Into my very core.

You have held me
When I needed pieces forced back together.

You have made me laugh in hues of sunshine,
On those of my midnights.

You say you have watched me grow,
Prosper just as a happy flower.

You say you are proud of who I became,
From what I had started from.

Not that you mentioned anything about my being a withered, lonely plant...
But that I had impressed you with my perseverance in this trembling world.

Because it is hard to be a prosperous plant,
While the odds are all posed against you.

Because those same, cinderblock walls encased within them everything that could possibly kill me.
But never did.

It's been a life of conquest and conquering, losing and learning.
And you've taught me the lesson of riding those waves as they come to wash me away.

And you've proven my 6th grade self wrong on countless occasions,
Family is not blood or last name or who you've known for the longest.

Family is love and family can be made from scratch,
It's not always something you are born into.

You have loved me and exhibited it constantly
And it was always something I needed in that place of bitter loneliness.

I'm no longer lonely,
I have found a home in you and in her and in them.

People who will be my forever,
Who don't need the excuse of routine to love me and tend to my garden of life.

They water and feed me without my asking.
They help my roots reach perfect depths to sustain me through those winters.

And you...
I thank you for being my 2.