Imperfectly

She raised me up.

When I bled she bandaged me up.

When I cried she wrapped me up

In arms that were the walls of my safest space.

My favorite face.

My saving grace.

She was all my favorite stories

Spun in a thread of gold,

To have and to hold,

To grow and to mold,

The music that danced beneath the words as they were told.

She was safe.

Until she wasn't.

Until she was human.

Bruised flesh and breakable bone.

Never mine alone.

My stories were mine alone.

Because maybe windows down and voices singing

Weren't so much freedom bringing

As longing ringing.

A real woman with real wants and real needs,

Singing just to feel...

Something.

Half-heartedly kissing baby's bruises to heal...

Little pains

Because the bigger hurt was hers.

And I never really knew her.

All of her.

Only the her I created.

Her desires bated.

Our mothers are too often fated

To fade into the stories of their children.

And maybe she needed, finally, to shake me,

To quell her longing to be free,

To just be.

Herself.

Imperfectly.