she was taught that life has an end
      when her father left earth on a gasp and a smile
                and to honor them,
           you cried for them

but why couldn’t you hug them anymore, mama
          and she would just smile, a placating gesture
                Ysolde wouldn’t learn until the ravens came along

to manifest the beginning of life, you had to want it,
           scanned notes in her math books told her
                   whenever she couldn’t concentrate on fractions,
       she would divide the world into what she knew,
            and what she wanted

                   a summer’s night of intense want gave her many things:
         a father, who smiled when his daughter appeared
don’t let them betray you like I was
         a heart full of love, and grief, as a child weeped
you will always be precious to me,
                          in this life and the next
         a torrential downpour that dampened the urge for revenge
use it for good, not for weakness

                    and so the next time she met God
                             she told him to go to hell.

Prompt: Precious