Motherless Child

 

"Motherless Child"

I’m a motherless child...

A shadow swallowed by the sun

a flicker of warmth in a world that keeps turning cold.

Born with a heart that was already grieving,

a cradle never rocked, a lullaby never sung,

but a spirit that somehow… still refused to die young.

The echoes of her voice

what did it even sound like?

Were there lullabies buried in her lungs?

Were there stories she might've whispered,

if only time had given us one?

Now it’s just silence

the kind that screams,

whispers that live in winds I can't hold,

like reaching out to hug smoke

always slipping through, always gone as if she never existed.

I reach out,

still alone.

Still aching in places that have no name.

Tell me… where does healing begin

when the wound was there before the memory?

She was never there to hold me.

Never traced the shape of my fear with her thumb,

never kissed the nightmares off my skin.

I’ve had to raise myself from ashes,

mothering the child in me

with trembling hands,

learning to sew stitches where there was no thread.

I wiped away my own tears

before I ever learned to spell my name.

An orphan in the emotional sense

a soul untethered,

drifting like a leaf in the aftermath of a storm.

A child without a compass,

grasping at the wind for a map,

longing for an anchor

in a world that keeps pulling me back.

I learned to build shelter out of sorrow,

learned to dance in the downpour

because umbrellas were stories I only saw in dreams.

The world

it always feels a little colder.

People ask me why I smile so wide

but it’s just armor.

It’s how I hide the hunger.

Because behind this grin is a graveyard

of moments that never came.

A birthday without candles.

A scraped knee without her name.

But every step I take without her

I’m stronger than I ask to be.

Braver than I pretend.

Carrying weight that doesn’t show,

walking roads with no end.

And still,

what little love she gave

maybe just the spark of life itself

still flickers in the dark places of my mind.

But this world...

it’s a puzzle missing too many pieces.

The corners don’t line up.

The picture never completes.

And somewhere,

in the center of it all,f

there’s a hole

shaped exactly like her absence.

The pieces of her

her warmth, her wisdom, her embrace

I reach for them in my dreams,

wake up with empty arms and a full heartache.

There’s no lesson passed down from her lips.

No bedtime fables. No kitchen table talk.

Only questions.

Only shadows.

Only the sound of footsteps that never walked beside me.

Still...

I am a motherless child, yes.

But I am also a survivor.

A storm-tamer.

A silence-breaker.

I carry her in me—

not in memory, but in marrow.

In every breath I fight to take,

in every truth I dare to speak,

in every moment I rise when the world tells me I’m too weak.

Though her arms never held me

I imagine they would’ve felt like home.

And that thought alone

keeps me moving.

Keeps me building a legacy

from broken things.

For in the depth of her absence

is the kind of strength

you don’t read about in fairy tales.

I am my own miracle.

I am my own mother now.

And every day,

I raise the child in me again.

So if you see me

standing quiet, standing strong,

know this:

I am a motherless child...

But I still belong.

And I will keep walking,

barefoot if I must,

bleeding if I have to,

toward a love I never knew

but always believed was real.

the Floetress