The Clearing

Hey, mum.

You good in there?

Have the worms been kinder

than life was?

-

It’s her birthday today.

She’s five.

Gap-toothed, wild,

sunlight caught in spit-slick curls.

She laughs at strangers.

She talks to shadows.

She trusts everything with legs

and a gentle tone.

Just like I did.

-

And every day—every fucking day—

I want to grab her wrists and say:

Don’t go. Don’t smile. Don’t let them near you.

But I don’t.

Because that’s how it begins, yeah?

The trimming.

The shaping.

The slow mutilation of soft.

The first time I told you no

was with a hemline.

The second time,

I never spoke again.

-

I was sixteen.

You remember.

You watched me leave in that red dress—

your mouth tight,

your voice colder than the hallway.

Don’t be stupid, you said.

-

Was that it?

Was that the alarm?

-

Because the clearing wasn’t a nightmare.

It wasn’t blood.

It was soft grass.

Birdsong.

A hand that didn’t shake.

He told me I was rare.

Said my laugh made him ache.

-

And I believed him.

Because you never told me

how hunger can wear manners.

How predators rehearse.

-

You never said

that the world doesn’t devour you with teeth—

it opens you slowly

and calls it longing.

-

I want to tell her.

My girl.

I want to kneel beside her bed

and whisper:

The world wants to fuck you dead, sweetheart.

And they’ll hand you flowers first.

But how do you say that

and still let her hold anything with wonder?

-

So I lie.

I pack her sandwich with apple slices and silence.

I tape a heart to her juice box

like it’s armor.

-

Just like you did.

-

And I hate you for it.

And I get it.

And I hate myself for that too.

-

Because maybe you were trying to keep

whatever light I had left.

Or maybe you just didn’t know how to speak

without unraveling.

-

I want to blame someone.

You.

Him.

God.

The trees.

-

But there’s no face on the hunger.

No name on the ache.

Just a girl

in a clearing

saying yes,

because no would make it worse.

-

And now—

a woman,

years later,

slipping falsehoods into her daughter’s lunchbox

with steady hands,

smiling.

Like spring.

.