My family
I
wonder what they see when they glance our way —
a
family arranged just so,
smiles
smoothed to civility,
no
storms, no shouting,
just
that taut‑mouthed shimmer of distance
only
we can feel.
Once,
you were warm against my skin —
born
of me, fed by me,
your
small hands anchoring my whole world.
Now
I stand an occasional visitor in your lives,
watching
you offer your children
the
tenderness I once gave to you.
Somewhere
between your growing up
and
my stepping out into my own life,
the
thread slipped.
And
though I reach for it still,
we
move like polite half‑strangers,
orbiting
a love we can no longer name.
So
I stand here —
not
accusing, not demanding —
just
holding the echo of what we were:
soft‑edged memories of small
bodies curled into mine,
and
the tears only I could quell,
You
grew, as children must,
stretching
beyond the borders of the life I built around you.
And
I grew too —
into
someone who wanted more
than
the narrow script I’d been handed.
Perhaps
that was the first fracture,
or
perhaps it was simply time
doing
what time always does.
Loss
is a quiet thief.
It
doesn’t slam doors;
it
just forgets to open them.
And
now I watch you
from
the doorway of your own bright, bustling worlds,
proud
and strangely peripheral,
as
if I slipped out of the frame
while
no one was looking.
Is
that what they see when they glance our way
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