Hiya.
It's been a tough week. Thanks for being here. For listening.
Continuing on...
But I remember her—
the little girl with the curly hair,
who talked too loud,
talked too much,
cried in hallways,
cried in bedrooms,
cried in her own head
hoping someone would hear her
and not mistake the sound for noise.
They said I was “different.”
I thought it meant special.
Chosen.
Loved.
Their favourite.
But I was chosen
because I was the easiest to catch.
Claws sink better into soft things.
Did we grow up the same way?
Did you put your claws in too
because that’s all we ever learned?
Distance was your safety.
But distance was your weapon too.
And now—
now I’m growing up
at an age where I should already be grown.
Learning how to live
while raising lives of my own.
How do you raise a child
when you never got to be one?
How do you give what you never received?
How do you build softness
when you only learned survival?
I read the books.
I watch the mothers in parks
and in aisles
and in stories
and I wonder:
How do they know how to do this?
Where did they learn tenderness
that wasn’t tangled in fear?
My children—
my heart, my breath, my whole damn world—
they deserve better than ghosts
and grief
and inherited shackles.
They will not grow up like that.
They will not be dragged up.
They will not be trapped.
0 comments