You learn later that the adults never learn later
That they keep smoking
And the bottles are just now hidden under their beds
That the salts and sugars on the soul food never lessen
And their parents arguing still lives in their heads
That the morals you grew up with just must be the ones that lay in your casket
Says your grandmother “that ain’t how you were raised…”
But your roll your eyes
gripping the neck of your bottle of wine
Learn that the adults never learn later

Dear inner child
My sweet inner child
I love many things about you
When crayons smashed against egg shell colored paper became
keys paired with hours of a blinding screen
You sat behind me in a torn computer chair
Yelling
” type faster, dork”
When our first and only love
in middle school
Turned into our second and third In our teenage years
You made sure to bring lilies to the doorstep
every heart break
When listening to hours and hours of our parents yell on Rodney St
words seeping through the threads of our pillow cases
Turned into hours and hours of yelling at my boyfriends through
The phone
You hugged my leg sticking out your tongue at them
When chuckling to our grandma about her fear of planes
as we sat on a 20 hour ride to Florida on a train
Melted into choking on my tears
forced to stare at a pot holding her ashes
You sat in my lap and held my hand
When Disney movies at nine years old
stayed Disney movies at twenty
You sung louder to Kiss The Girl
And threw popcorn in the air
dancing
The thing that I love most is
That you’ve stayed by my side through every change
every phase
Even when life grabs me by the neck and tells me to
“Grow up”,
And let go of you
You stand tall and whisper
every time
“Never”