"If I should have a daughter" response

I broke the poem up into sections and labeled them to make it easier to read:

I. If I should have a daughter, instead of "Mom," she's gonna call me "Point B," because that way she knows that no matter what happens, at least she can always find her way to me. And I'm going to paint solar systems on the backs of her hands so she has to learn the entire universe before she can say, "Oh, I know that like the back of my hand."

II. And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air. There is hurt, here, that cannot be fixed by Band-Aids or poetry. So the first time she realizes that Wonder Woman isn't coming, I'll make sure she knows she doesn't have to wear the cape all by herself because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal.

III. Believe me, I've tried. "And, baby," I'll tell her, don't keep your nose up in the air like that. I know that trick; I've done it a million times. You're just smelling for smoke so you can follow the trail back to a burning house, so you can find the boy who lost everything in the fire to see if you can save him. Or else find the boy who lit the fire in the first place, to see if you can change him."

IV. But I know she will anyway, so instead I'll always keep an extra supply of chocolate and rain boots nearby, because there is no heartbreak that chocolate can't fix. Okay, there's a few heartbreaks that chocolate can't fix. But that's what the rain boots are for, because rain will wash away everything, if you let it. I want her to look at the world through the underside of a glass-bottom boat, to look through a microscope at the galaxies that exist on the pinpoint of a human mind, because that's the way my mom taught me.

V. That there'll be days like this. ♫ There'll be days like this, my mama said. ♫ When you open your hands to catch and wind up with only blisters and bruises; when you step out of the phone booth and try to fly and the very people you want to save are the ones standing on your cape; when your boots will fill with rain, and you'll be up to your knees in disappointment. And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away.

VI. You will put the wind in winsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life. And yes, on a scale from one to over-trusting, I am pretty damn naive. But I want her to know that this world is made out of sugar. It can crumble so easily, but don't be afraid to stick your tongue out and taste it.

VII. "Baby," I'll tell her, "remember, your mama is a worrier, and your papa is a warrior, and you are the girl with small hands and big eyes who never stops asking for more." Remember that good things come in threes and so do bad things. And always apologize when you've done something wrong, but don't you ever apologize for the way your eyes refuse to stop shining. Your voice is small, but don't ever stop singing. And when they finally hand you heartache, when they slip war and hatred under your door and offer you handouts on street-corners of cynicism and defeat, you tell them that they really ought to meet your mother.

          This poem is about what Sarah Kay thinks her daughter is going to be like and what she's going to teach her. I think it's also about life in general, and about how it's unfair but Sarah is going to help her daughter live through it. This poem has a lot of figurative language in it, especially metaphors and personification. I really like this poem because it's written more like a story and not a poem. She talks a lot about how life is unfair but she knows that her daughter would get through it. I really like how she writes some of her lines, specifically the ones with figurative language in them.
          One of my favorite parts of the poem is the whole second section. When she writes, "And she's going to learn that this life will hit you hard in the face, wait for you to get back up just so it can kick you in the stomach. But getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air," she's saying how unfair life is, but facing obstacles just reminds you how good life really is. I really like how in those sentences she doesn't just say it straight out, she makes you have to think about what she's saying by using figurative language.
           I also like when she says, "....because no matter how wide you stretch your fingers, your hands will always be too small to catch all the pain you want to heal." She uses a metaphor to say that no matter what you can't heal all the pain in the world. I think this line is really strong, because she's also saying that no matter how big you are, or how tall, or how smart, it's never going to be enough to heal all the pain, so you just have to try to help all the people around you because that's the most you can do.
           In the third section, Sarah Kay is saying that instead of doing nothing about something, see if you can help someone by comforting the lonely, sad person, or find the mean person who makes people lonely and sad and try to make him a better person. She's basically saying what she said in the second section, to try to help everyone around you. In the fifth section, I really like how she says, "And those are the very days you have all the more reason to say thank you. Because there's nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it's sent away," because it has personification to say that when you're disappointed, still say thanks because you have to be persistent like the ocean and never give up on something, no matter how many times you fail.
           My favorite lines are: "You will put the wind in winsome, lose some. You will put the star in starting over, and over. And no matter how many land mines erupt in a minute, be sure your mind lands on the beauty of this funny place called life." I like how she takes words and takes little parts of them out to create sentences, like how she says "You will put the star in starting over," where she's saying that it's okay to start over and you will make it happen. In the the third sentence in the quote about the land mines, she changes around landmines to say to make your "mind land" on life, despite all the obstacles out there. I think the main theme of the poem is never to give up at life no matter how many obstacles come at you.