i woke up missing a self that had gone when you left,
holding your hand, small child still needing shelter from the sinking doubt
of later years and yet, memory fails me when i try
to recall what protection felt like; maybe i was never sheltered, not
in the way that feels safe — though certainly in the way that
feels smothering and hot, suffocating in a space too small, too filled
with useless material weight to encourage little wings to spread as wide
as the sky the eyes of the heart have always so loved
i don’t remember much that sends any warmth traveling through the core
just blankness, silent knowing that once i was a child and once
i had a childhood but that suddenly, time flew away and my
little wings could not keep up without room for them to unfold
and i do not know the self that i woke up missing
or the hand she was still trying to hold
