The Child I Can’t Remember (for the girl who waited by the window)
There’s a girl in my skin
that I don’t recognize—
she hides in reflections,
behind my own eyes.
She once wore light-up shoes,
sang into a hairbrush mic,
but her name feels foreign
on the tongue of my life.
She sits by the window,
knees hugged in tight,
watching for headlights
that never come at night.
And when Kings of Leon
plays low on the radio,
my chest cracks open
where the old ghosts go.
I remember the way
you cried to the chorus
like it meant something.
You knew every word
like it was your own story—
a little girl aching
for someone to see her glory.
But no one came.
Not then. Not really.
Just a mother with excuses
and a father who hurt freely.
So we stitched together
a version of love
from bruiseless days
and the absence of shove.
We called it affection
when no fists flew,
called it connection
if they said “I love you.”
And when love came wrapped
in apologies and pain,
we stayed—because at least
it came back again.
I’m sorry we learned
that love meant surviving.
That we mistook stillness
for peace, not hiding.
That we gave and we gave
to be “worth the keeping,”
even as we broke
and called it healing.
But listen, little one—
we’re not living like that now.
We are the soft place
our babies lay down.
We are the mother
we never received,
the apology
we always believed.
We’re healing.
It’s messy and wild and slow.
But we are choosing
the love we never got to know.
And when “Use Somebody”
plays late at night,
I still cry sometimes—
but now, it’s alright.
Because I’ve found her,
the child I couldn’t see.
She’s here in my arms.
And she’s safe now—
with me.
