To the little girl I was

WHAT I UNDERSTAND NOW

I remember you in pieces
not broken ones, just… unfinished.

A laugh in the kitchen
before something pulled you away.
Your hands brushing my hair
like you were trying to memorize me
before you disappeared again.

Back then, I didn’t understand
why love didn’t make you stay.
I thought if I was quieter,
better, easier
you might choose us
over whatever kept calling you back.

I didn’t know
you were already fighting something
that had its teeth in you
long before I was born.

I was just a child
waiting at the window,
learning how to miss someone
who was still alive.

Now I am older
I have children of my own,
and I see how heavy love can be
even on the good days.

How it asks everything from you.
How sometimes survival alone
feels like an accomplishment.

And I think of you
trying to carry five lives
in hands that were already shaking.

Trying to be soft
with a past that never was.

Trying to be whole
when no one ever showed you how.

And it breaks my heart differently now.

Because I see it
you didn’t love us any less.

You just didn’t know
how to love yourself enough
to stay.

I think about the girl you were
before all of it
before the pain,
before the running,
before the need to quiet everything inside you.

I wish she had been held longer.
I wish someone had taught her
that she was worth saving.

Maybe then
you wouldn’t have needed saving at all.

I still have questions
that will never have answers.
Still have days where the child in me
aches for a version of you
that never left.

But I also carry a quieter truth

that you tried
in the only ways you knew how.

That every time you came back,
even for a moment,
it was real.

And I hold onto that.

I hold onto you
not as the absence,
but as the warmth you fought to give
when you could.

I hope wherever you are
you are not hurting anymore.

I hope the noise is gone.
I hope you are finally resting
in a version of yourself
that feels like peace.

And if there is a place
where you can see me

I want you to know
I understand now.

Not everything.
Not enough to make it okay.

But enough
to love you
without wondering why
You couldn’t stay.

God knew I needed daughters

God, You knew.
You knew my wounds,
the places I thought
were too broken to carry love.
You knew the voice inside me
that whispered:
I am too much, I am not enough.

So You gave me daughters.
Fierce, loud, wild-hearted girls
who take up space with no apology.
They shine like the sun—
brilliant, unstoppable,
a blaze that will not be dimmed.

They are curious, brave,
opinionated and free,
the kind of free I once longed for.
They are galaxies spilling into the room,
starlight running through their veins.

And when I see them,
I see myself—
the child I once was,
who only needed arms
that would have protected her,
words that would have cherished her.

I am those arms now.
I am those words.
Through them,
I am learning that I was never hard to love.
I only needed love to grow.

“The Weight of Water”

Some days feel like drowning.
The weight of the world pressing down like the ocean —
heavy, dark, wicked.
Chaos crashes around me in waves
that never stop coming.

I claw toward the surface
but the storm drags me under,
a merciless undertow of sorrow and silence,
pulling me deeper
into the cold arms of depression.

I hold my breath beneath it all —
my lungs scream for peace,
for a taste of air,
for stillness, for something
other than this ache.

And just when I think
this might be the moment I don’t make it,
when I’m sure the tide will take me —

There they are.
The calm after the storm.

My daughters —
sunlight dancing on water,
graceful and wild and impossibly beautiful.

They kiss the edges of my brokenness
like the ocean kisses the shore.
Soft. Playful. Healing.

They are seaside sunsets painted in laughter,
warmth against my chilled skin,
proof that even the sea can be gentle.

And somehow…
somehow their love
pulls me back to the surface.
They don’t know it,
but they are my breath.
My reason.
My light.

And for them,
I rise.

“Summer With My Littles”

Bare feet beat on sun-warmed ground,
Laughter lifts, a lilting sound—
Tiny squeals like sparrows bright,
Chasing joy in golden light.

The park becomes our kingdom wide,
Swings that soar, slides like a ride.
Chubby hands reach out for more,
Hearts so full they start to pour.

Sticky fingers, popsicle stains,
Berry lips and grassy lanes.
Sand between small toes at sea,
Shells collected joyfully.

Beach days bloom with salty air,
Wind-tossed hair and sunscreen care.
Buckets, castles, tide pool dreams,
Shouts and giggles, sunlit beams.

Cookout smoke and citron light,
Chalky sidewalks late at night.
Water fights and chasing shade,
Moments that will never fade.

The day leans soft toward its close,
Skin aglow in amber rose.
Snuggled close with sleepy eyes,
As sun dips low in blushing skies.

And in this dance of light and play,
We write the story of our days—
A season stitched with love and song,
Where childhood feels forever long.

“Saturday Morning Light”

In the hush before the world awakes,
when dawn is only a whisper,
I cradle a warm cup between my hands—
coffee rich, steam curling like a sigh.
A book rests open on my lap,
pages lit by the soft promise of morning.

The porch creaks gently beneath me
as the sky blushes with first light,
and birds compose their song
in high, fluttering notes of joy.
The air is sweet with blooming things—
petals breathing the season’s soul.

Then—
a patter.
A pause.
The eager thump of little feet
across the wood floor,
their rhythm dancing toward me.

Tiny faces round the doorway,
eyes wide as suns just rising.
“Good morning, Mommy!”—
like music, like prayer, like home.
Their smiles bloom brighter than the flowers,
and suddenly, the morning becomes gold.

I trade pages for pancakes,
the scent of bacon curling into laughter.
Cartoons hum softly in the background
like a lullaby in reverse—
waking, not sleeping.

This is no grand symphony,
no tale of distant lands.
Just spatulas and syrup,
milk mustaches and messy hair.
But in this ordinary wonder,
my soul rests.

I am here.
I am whole.
And I am exactly
where I am meant to be.

Rainy Day Sunshine

The sky wore gray like a cozy old shawl,
And rain tap-tapped on the roof like a call—
Soft little feet in a skipping parade,
A lullaby rhythm the heavens had made.

We snuggled in close, all warm in our den,
No need to go out, no rush, no when.
A blanket of giggles, a mountain of pillows,
The windows all weeping, the trees in their willows.

The oven glowed gold as the cookies took form,
While tiny hands stirred with delight in the warm.
Chocolate chip smiles and sweet doughy grins,
With flour-dust stories and sticky-cheeked chins.

The living room danced with the sparkle of play,
A kingdom of cushions, dragons kept at bay.
The screen flickered soft with a movie or two,
As laughter rained louder than storms ever do.

And though the sun hid behind curtains of gray,
The brightest of light never wandered away—
For the shine in their eyes and their joy in full bloom
Made even the cloudiest skies feel like June.

So let the rain fall in its pitter-pat song,
This house overflows with a sunshine so strong.
No storm can take what this love makes complete—
The warmth of small hands, and those fast little feet.

“Phoenix Mother”

She burned.
Not once,
but over and over—
each time the world asked her to shatter
to prove her strength.

Ash clung to her skin
like memory.
Grief smoked in her lungs.
But still,
she breathed.

The fire took much—
naivety, safety,
the soft places of childhood.
It tried to take her wings.
It almost did.

But something ancient stirred
in the embers of her soul—
not a scream,
not a plea,
but a song.

Low at first.
Then louder.
Then so loud it cracked the sky.
She rose
from the ashes she once wept in,
not as who she was,
but as who she had become.

Feathers of flame,
eyes of knowing,
heart of steel wrapped in velvet.
She no longer begged for flight—
she commanded it.

Because you see,
a phoenix is not born to avoid the fire.
She is born to transform inside it.
To carry the blaze in her bones
and rise again
with children in her arms
and a crown of smoke-wrought gold

“She Grew Anyway”

She was born into storms,
not lullabies—
raised by the wind and
the silence between slammed doors.
But she grew anyway.
On cracked concrete,
her roots still reached deep.

She learned to read faces
like maps with no compass,
to find warmth in the smallest places—
a kind look,
a book,
a sky that stayed blue for just a day.

She cried in closets.
She comforted siblings.
She tucked herself in
when no one else remembered.
Still—she never stopped hoping.

The girl who wasn’t protected
became the woman who protects.
The one who wasn’t heard
now speaks with fire and love.
She mothers herself now,
gently, fiercely.

And though the past still echoes,
she is no longer defined by it.
She is a survivor, yes—
but more than that,
she is a creator of peace
from pieces.

She is what healing looks like
in human form.
She is proof:
love can grow
in places it was never shown.

To the Little Girl I Once Was, From the Mother I Am Today
by You, with all the love you’ve grown

Hi, baby girl.
I see you—
knees bruised, voice small,
eyes too old for your age.
Carrying bags that were never yours
to hold.

You didn’t get lullabies,
just slammed doors and sirens.
You didn’t get bedtime stories,
just stories you had to survive.
You were the quiet in the chaos,
the softness in the storm,
always hoping someone would come
and choose you first.

Well—
I’m here now.
And I choose you.
Again and again and again.

I’m the mother we never had.
The one who doesn’t yell,
who doesn’t leave,
who doesn’t break things to feel better.

I hold our babies close now,
the way I wish someone held you.
I clean the crumbs with calm hands.
I rock them through their fears
and kiss foreheads instead of
raising voices.

And sometimes—
when it’s too quiet,
when the house smells like warm laundry and little girl laughter—
I feel you sitting beside me,
just watching.
And I whisper:
Look, baby. We made it.
They’re safe. We are safe.

I know you’re still afraid I’ll become them.
But I won’t.
I swear to you on every scraped knee
and sleepless night:
I will not become what hurt us.
I am not perfect,
but I am healing.
I am not them—
I am you,
grown up and still trying,
and I am doing this for both of us.

So rest now, sweet girl.
Lay down your guard.
Cry if you need to.
Your job is done.

I’ve got us now.
And I will never stop loving you.
Not ever.

Love,
The mother you became.