An apology to my daughter while having a panic attack

An apology to my daughter while having an anxiety attack: 

I am sorry 

that I cannot 

tell you 

How to corral the fear 

inside your blood 

or how to cleave 

its froth from bones. 

I am sorry I can only 

tell you truths due to all my vice. 

I am sorry I've imparted,

Through genetics 

or chronic example 

or some bastardization of the two, 

the impression of 

a woman consumed. 

I dreamt deeply of a strength

who's aroma I could no longer  detect at dawn 

but I promise I mean it

When I say I wanted to give you 

What I had never seen.

I am the daughter of a daughter of a hysterical daughter 

and I've aspired to be 

the mutation that rights  

a distressed line.

It never occurred to me

that my lungs are not designed

to breathe the fresh air of this new, uncharted space; 

that even if I ensure you survive,

I will not have the stamina 

To show you how running is done. 

It never occurred to me

that my bones are not trusting 

of the emotional summits 

I command they scale 

or that I would be chronically overcome 

by the demons 

I allow to squat in my brain. 

I wanted to be a woman 

habituated in self-love,

and yet all I've mastered 

is ancestrally self-sabotage.

Please believe me, 

despite the paucity of evidence, 

That I wanted to give you 

what I never saw, 

Up close and personal, 

a woman of 2,500 feelings

and not enslaved by a single one, 

a woman, 

who quit spiraling through

an expired evolution,

who has not broken 

hearts and promises,

who has nothing to apologize for,

so that maybe, 

Just maybe,  

my pitfalls

would remain my own 

And not have to be the trigger 

announcing 

where some of your real work 

begins.