She wants to see with your eyes. She wants to smile with your smile. She wants a nice surprise.

-Depeche Mode

 Talking to my daughter about moving to New York
  
 When I try to tell you a story about when I was twenty-two
  
 I see my own anxiety outlined in your arms and neck, your bounding and still deer eyes
  
 the lean and tilt of you against the kitchen door frame, 
  
 I’m uninspired to mention:
  
 Brooklyn and Chelsea parties in tiny apartments, where I could get men to 
  
 strip just by asking, drunk trust fund kids who visited three homes, 
  
 in the summertime, escaping the urine smells on the sidewalk,
  
 the jealousy of boyfriends, how they seemed to fall from trees
  
 My roommate and I discovering we lived in Blondie’s old apartment where the walls were once painted silver
  
 a rotating door of roommates. Some broke dishes. Some were French, Some moved back west.
  
 How can I encourage you to go?  Where most of the time I was so lonely painting my kitchen walls orange,
  
 Fleeing to a museum pop up exhibit
  
 the ease of credit card debt on Broadway
  
 The wanting to escape the ambulance noise a never ending loop
  
 but now in the too quiet of the Prairie, 
  
 Not ready for you to wear short kilts and get cat called, 
  
 to tell you to be brave and to only take measured risks, 
  
 but also 
 
 who will protect you
 
 who are you
 
 who will you be
 
 who am I 
 
 when you say goodbye