I wish
I could find you.
Not in a photograph.
Not frozen
with someone else’s hand
on your shoulder,
trying to smile
because adults told you to.
I mean really find you.
Five years old.
Small enough
to believe grown-ups
always knew what they were doing.
I would sit
on the floor beside you.
I wouldn’t ask questions.
You had enough adults
asking questions.
I wouldn’t tell you
everything gets better.
Some things don’t.
Some things simply become
something you learn
to carry differently.
Instead,
I would tell you—
none of this
will make you unlovable.
You will grow up
thinking love
is something earned
by staying quiet.
By forgiving too much.
By making yourself
easy to keep.
You will spend years
confusing chaos
for devotion.
You will meet people
who touch your wounds
like they discovered them.
Leave.
Please.
Leave sooner.
But I know you won’t.
Because every version of us
had to survive
with what she knew then.
So I forgive you.
For staying.
For begging.
For returning.
For believing.
For every night
you called yourself stupid
when you were really
just starving
for tenderness.
Listen—
one day
there will be children
running through your home.
Loud children.
Messy children.
Children who know
you will come back
when they call.
You will build
the kind of safety
you once thought
only existed
in other people’s houses.
And you—
little girl—
will become the adult
you kept waiting for.
I wish
I could tell you
how fucking proud
that makes me.
Leave a Reply