u/Acceptable-Hair8442

I keep seeing videos on my phone and they all feel like reminders— like there’s a world I was supposed to grow up in but didn’t. A world where “mom” means safe where “mom” means home where “mom” doesn’t feel like something you have to survive. I saw you just enough to know I was supposed to love you every other weekend measured out in visits like I was something borrowed not kept. and one day— nothing special about it— you showed up just because you wanted to and I remember thinking this is what it’s supposed to feel like you handed me a fairy lamp soft light in my hands like proof that maybe I got it wrong about you but love with you always came with noise voices getting louder doors not quite slamming but close enough and I was five maybe six hiding outside trying to make my breathing quiet like if I stayed small enough it would all stop later I heard what you did— cards cut in half a necklace broken like everything you touched had to come apart after that I stopped waiting for quiet there were years I lived with you I don’t remember them as years more like a series of nights that didn’t belong to me somewhere in between I stopped asking questions and started learning patterns what you reached for I learned to recognize before words were even said and at some point I stopped being just your daughter and started becoming whatever stayed close enough to survive you I was fourteen still pretending I was small enough for rules to mean something but rules didn’t stay rules for long just suggestions that got ignored in the wrong rooms after that everything blurred together school became something I passed through not something I was part of like I was always halfway somewhere else chasing the same escape without knowing what I was escaping from some things I don’t write down all the way just pieces— a room that didn’t feel like mine things left where they shouldn’t be and the understanding that normal was never coming back there are memories that don’t feel like memories just something I got through because I had to I haven’t seen you in five years no goodbye no final version of you just absence that kept its shape I still see those videos mothers laughing cooking answering calls like it matters I used to compare them to you now I don’t compare anything I just notice what I never had I don’t miss you, I just remember surviving you