A Love Unanswered: Healing from Parent Estrangement

I carried you, once, beneath my ribs,

a heartbeat echoing inside my own,

felt the flutter of your tiny kicks,

a love I had never known.

I traced your cheeks with fingertips,

sang lullabies in whispered tones,

wiped away each trembling lip,

called you mine, called you home.

But time, relentless thief of years,

stole the laughter from our days,

left me with an empty room,

and silence where your voice once played.

You grew in ways I couldn't hold,

your hands slipped from my grasp,

now love is measured in the space

between the present and the past.

You speak in echoes, fleeting, faint,

or not at all, just ghosts of sound.

I wonder if you ever think

of all the love I poured, unbound.

Did I fail you? Was I too much?

Or not enough to keep you near?

The ache of motherhood is this—

to love, to lose, to grieve in fear.

Yet still, I wait, I watch, I hope,

for just a glimpse, a call, a sign,

for love, though left unanswered now,

is patient, endless, always mine.