My Mom as a Little Girl

i yearn to meet the little girl version of you

where you snuck off to after school

how you stitched up the stockings the boys ripped off of you

why you chose the long way back home

only to smell the flowers on the road because you were taught picking them out of their own homes would not be right, it will always be wrong

and how you avoided the other problematic girls

because you knew better than to stir up fires in the woods

the songs you secretly sang to

the books you read through, looking for truths

and then how your back began to ache

because your mother abandoned you with a heartbreak

but it wasn't her fault

how you remained strong despite the winds pushing you to the floor

where you hid it all

how you still carried the world on your shoulders

and then when you began to understand the purpose of man

and how he can take you away from any home you had left

and i wish i could have seen you say, "yes"

i yearn to listen to the voice in your head

who told you to run away so that the next person you raise

can dream in a better place

and how convincing it sounded,

putting your own troubles behind you

and when you heard, “it’s a girl”

did you imagine her in pearls

and how she would one day make her own rules

i bet you worried for her, too

you knew this world could be cruel

but if anyone could create a soldier,

it was someone who knew how to fight for her life,

if anyone could raise a fighter, it was you