Growth

‘You know, you can always talk to me...’
Opening conversation that way, I generally
Yearned for her to understand
That above all, I will remain here for her.

She looks at me inquisitively,
As though sizing my character well.
Judging me to be nothing more inviting than
A character in her book.

Searching the pages again,
‘I know.’ blindly, she always replied.
As though hearing it one more time
Would make any degree of difference.

She sat near me cuddling close,
Smothering like wind-chilled starlings.
‘Mom?’ she inquired half-statement, half-question
Always commanding my attention,

‘I don’t want to grow up.’

It dropped.
Like over-ripe fruit,
Burdened further
Than the bough can bear.
Honesty stings the silence between statements.
Blistering. Accuracy.

I gathered it softly, cradled in my heart,
Careful not to reveal the pain it concealed.
She would not know, now or ever,
How small, how scared, how vulnerable
I remain.

I find comfort in the warmth of her
Need of me.

~07/18/06