• Inner Child •

The cards said
to ask my inner child
what she needs,
and so I
whisper within,
wondering a moment
if she’ll even answer,
if she still has
a voice after
all she’s been through.
The arguments overheard,
the cracked bottles
in her playroom,
the sadness in
her mother’s eyes
that she’ll learn to mimic
as all children do.

But she does speak,
quiet and soft,
begging me to
still have hope.

do you still believe
in magic? she asks.
I do, I whisper back.
do you still, love everyone?
I try, I reply.
do you still run through
fields spinning in circles
in the wonder of the
late summer sun?
Not in a long time, little one.

The more she asks
of things we used to do
the more I remember
what it felt like to
be like her…
fearless in love.
unapologetic in joy.
courageous in hope.

The child in me wants
nothing more than to
make me understand,
there’s no separation
between the two,
we’re an us,
hand in hand.
I am who she
was meant to become
and if I hadn’t been her,
then I would never
know love.

⚬⧝⚬