“How do I love my 11 year old emo daughter, let me count the ways”

How do I love my 11 year old emo daughter, let me count the ways—  
In midnight paint and silence soft, in tangled strands of haze.  
For every sigh and distant gaze that lands upon her shoe,  
I love each shadow in her eyes, where storm and starlight brew.  

I love her boots, her battered books, her playlists full of ache,  
The art she sketches in her sleeve, the brave face she will make—  
When classrooms crowd and friends move on, she curls against the noise,  
I love her honesty in tears, her quiet overjoys.  

I love the streaks of midnight blue she slips into her hair,  
The safety pins upon her sleeves—a gentle kind of flair;  
The lyrics scribbled on her hands, half anthem and half plea,  
I love the world she’s crafting there, a space to just be free.  

I love the questions that she asks when darkness fills the day,  
How fierce she guards her fragile hope, and why she walks her way.  
I love her laugh when it erupts—surprise in every note,  
The dreams she dares to whisper low, then cradles in her coat.  

How do I love my 11 year old emo daughter? Endlessly—  
In every layer, shade, and scar, she’s perfectly, just **she.**  
So count it all: the storm, the sun, each chapter new and true—  
There’s no one else beneath the moon I’d rather listen to.

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