POETRY: “Loving my orphaned self”

Pay attention to me pleads the wee one,
waiting as patiently as a seed in the ground.

The voice comes from a hurting one within,
a forgotten, neglected one inside,
with an open and bleeding heart.
She reminds me of a one of those
picture-ads of starving children,
and I quickly turn away,
avoiding my place in the chain of command.
Which is all to say, I have a difficult time
paying attention to the hurting one inside.

Yesterday I sat, we sat on a couch
across from our therapist. He immediately saw
this orphaned self, though I didn’t at the time.
I simply noted feeling sad and overwhelmed.

But she felt his attention and for her it was
like a hot sun on goose-bumped flesh.
My therapist is exceptional.
He gently poked my hibernating maternal instinct.
I remember that after I gave birth to two children,
I was amazed to discover how easy it was
to give them everything I had,
yet with this aching one within,
I am so stingy. A cruel miser with my love.

The therapist had me say this, ask that,
feel what I would, offer what I might.
And a warm love welled from within,
as if someone moved a rock
that was blocking a spring.
I didn’t want to turn away.
Sweet one, tell me what
it was like for you, then and now.
And she does with hot tears,
with the raw freshness of
time having stopped for her,
while the rest of the world moved on.

She tells me so many things,
stories that break my heart and enrage.
Then she tells me she wants to be loved,
only it takes her five tries to get
the word “loved” out, a stuttered longing
slowly winding its way through
brittle vocal chords in a tightened throat.
She is frightened that her words
will fall on emptiness, like a dropped glass,
shattering into cutting splinters.
But I hear her and my heart easily responds.

She smiles, her arms suddenly
flung around me, and mine around her.
She is safe. believed. wanted. loved
It is an orchestrated moment
of self-love and acceptance.
She, the hurting bundle of longing;
I, the older wiser one
who can choose to be
an able caregiver.

Again and again I will be turning to her,
for there is a wound that needs to be
tended to—cleaned, bandaged, kissed.
Over and over and over again, until one day
the wound closes, with only a beautiful scar left.
A scar embroidered into the skin,
telling a story not of what should have been,
but of what was and wasn’t,
and what can be—as long as I don’t turn away.