Once, her hands held me,
Soft as whispers, firm as roots;
They planted me in the soil of her love,
And I grew, tender beneath her shade.
She was the sun, my guiding light,
Her stories my lullabies, her laughter my warmth.
But now the air between us chills,
Heavy with words unsaid,
With silences that scrape like shards of glass.
Her gaze no longer seeks my own,
Her words no longer cradle,
But cut.
What did I do to lose the woman I once adored?
Did the years erode her love,
Or did my growing shadow push hers away?
She speaks now with a tongue unfamiliar,
Bitter, sharp, coiled in thorns,
Piercing the heart she once mended.
Her embrace feels foreign,
Like wearing a coat two sizes too small,
Restrictive, suffocating—
And I wonder,
Is it me who changed? Or her?
I sit and search for the woman she was,
But find only echoes,
Faint and distorted in the cavern of memory.
The hands that once planted me now uproot,
Shaking the earth, leaving me bare,
Exposed to the winds of her discontent.
I started hating her,
Not for who she was,
But for who she became.
For the cracks she carved into my heart,
For the way she turned her back
On the little girl who still waits for her love.
But hate is a heavy stone,
And I carry it uneasily,
Each step pressing it deeper into my chest.
I long to throw it, to forget it, to forgive,
Yet her shadow looms,
Dark and impenetrable.
How do I mourn someone still alive?
How do I grieve the loss of her kindness,
Her warmth, her place in my world?
The grandmother I knew
Is a ghost haunting her own skin,
And I am left to wrestle with her absence
In her presence.
Still, I whisper to the echoes,
Hoping she might hear:
“Come back to me.
Even if just for a moment,
Let me feel your love once more
Before the hate takes all I have left to give.”