Dear Inner Child,

Your roots have spread across me and I am sprouting stories filled with melancholy. A child’s sadness is ripe and sour. Your sensitivity warms my chest, my darling, what happened isn’t your fault.

When the sun finds my cheek I am reminded
of your rioted simplicity, of your warm eagerness
shadowed with fear. If I could hold you, I would.
If you could love you, you would. It’s okay.
It was never your fault but
Do you think you deserved it?

I no longer do. Still, the memory inside me is wrinkled by guilt. When the grass runs through my fingertips I see bits of you sprinkled in the green. Your naivety,
your love. It feels like nostalgia spun
up my ribs with your vines. It was never our fault but

I’d still love you if it were. If the sun went down and never came up if the breeze ran still and the world went quiet,
I imagine I’d feel you rise within me like a marigold, yellow and familiar like grandma’s house.
Your resilience.

I’ll always admire that. The dark quiet holes you have dug yourself out of—your persistence of life.

Love,
You.