There is a little girl,

with honey gold ringlets that frame her face.

Her eyes match the deep blue of the water,

shifting from side to side to take it all in,

The glistening scarlet hues of the goldfish

swimming by. Strong hands lift her up.

High enough to see even the fish hiding beneath the reeds.

High enough to touch the surface of the sun.

Her father’s laugh is deep and warm like the crackling of a fire,

his hands only seek to raise her up, higher and higher.

I can feel his love in the air, in the sky, in my throat.

When I close my eyes, I’m that little girl once again;

My laugh is just like hers, we see the pufferfish you donated to the zoo before I was born.

You love me, completely and fully.

I don’t have the angry voice of a teenage girl.

The hurricane isn’t brewing in my gaze,

Ready to swallow you under the waves.

You don’t feed the gale inside of me with your words,

with your distance, with your heavy footsteps.

You lift me out of the stroller to see the pufferfish, higher and higher.

You lift me so high that I can feel the heat of the biggest star in my palms.

You haven’t held me up to touch the sun in a decade.

I open my eyes and the storm has all but left my body.

I am twenty years grown.

I am no longer a child; no longer yours.

My own eyes are still as blue as the seawater,

but that little girl has faded into nothingness.

I know something now that I have learned over years

of pleading with you to be my mother again.

There are no warm hands to raise me up,

and you will never love me like that again.