For Valerie

A poem dedicated to my strong mother. 3 years feels like a life time without you.

I swear we’ve done this before.
In another life, in another skin,
where you brushed galaxies out of my hair
and told me the moon was mine
because I came from its glow.

We were born tethered.
Not by umbilical cord,
but by soulstring�"
an invisible thread that pulled tight
whenever the world tried to bury us.

You weren’t just my mother.
You were my echo before I ever spoke.
The shoulder before I learned to cry.
The laugh in the middle of my silence.
The voice in the back of my throat
telling me, “You’ve survived worse. Breathe.”

You didn’t raise me�"you remembered me.
And I remembered you.
Even before my first breath,
I knew your heartbeat like it was my own drumbeat.

We were more than mother and daughter.
We were twin flames,
flickering in the same storm
but refusing to go out.

I used to think time was a straight line,
but with you it looped�"
always coming back around,
always finding its way to us.
Maybe that’s why I dream in fragments�"
like flashes of lifetimes I never lived,
but somehow still ache for.

You were the keeper of my softness
in a world that tried to turn me sharp.
The calm in my chaos.
The warm cup on a cold morning.
The answer before the question even finished leaving my lips.

And then one day…
you were gone.

Not gently, not slowly�"
but like a door slammed by a hurricane.
Like the sun dipped below the earth
and forgot to come back.

And I know
I know
I know
you didn’t want to go.
But that doesn’t mean I’m not furious that you did.

I hate that you left me
in this version of the story�"
the one where the world keeps spinning
but you are not here to see it.

I hate that I wake up
and still reach for your voice
like a lamp in the dark.
And all I get
is silence
wearing your perfume.

They tell me to be grateful,
to remember the good.
But gratitude doesn’t hold me at night.
It doesn’t know how to brush my hair.
It doesn’t curse the sky with me when everything falls apart.

You left me with lessons
but no arms.
With recipes
but no taste.
With memories
but no more tomorrows.

Some days, my grief grows teeth.
It bites down on joy
until it bruises.
Other days,
it curls beside me
like a child that just wants to be held.

I’ve tried to fold your name into prayers
but it keeps bleeding through.
Tried to write you into poems
but your spirit spills off the page.
You were never meant to be a metaphor�"
you were the whole damn meaning.

And still, I carry you.
In the curve of my cheek.
In the way I throw my head back when I laugh too hard.
In the way I give people more chances than they deserve�"
because you always did.

I carry you
in every room I walk into,
like a second shadow.
A soft hum beneath my skin.
A ghost that doesn’t haunt�"
but refuses to be forgotten.

And I am mad, Ma.
I am mad that the universe chose this timeline.
The one where I have to tell stories
instead of call your phone.
The one where my healing
sounds a lot like your name
spoken through clenched teeth.

But underneath the rage
is still the girl who wants to believe
that you’ll walk through the door one more time,
smiling like nothing happened.

Because we’ve done this before.
In some life, in some body.
You’ve found me in every version of the world,
and I’ve always found my way back to you.

Maybe that’s how love works
when it’s eternal.
It doesn’t end�"
it just shapeshifts.

So if you’re listening�"
from some place without clocks,
without pain,
without loss�"

Know that I remember.
I remember the warmth,
the way your hands made everything less heavy.
I remember the way you called my name like it was a song.
And I still hum that tune
on the days the world feels unbearable.

I remember
because you’re still here, somehow.
In the taste of honey.
In the sound of rain.
In the quiet after my deepest sob.
In the voice that says,
“You are not alone, baby. I’m still right here.”

And I believe you.
Even when I can’t feel you.
Even when I curse the sky for stealing you.
Even when I’m broken open and begging for one more minute.

I believe you.
Because we’ve been here before.
And somehow,
we always find our way back.

Sometimes I wonder
if I was too much to leave behind.
If your soul hesitated at the edge
when it saw me sleeping,
curled into the shape of a question
only you ever knew how to answer.

Some nights I whisper out loud,
“I’m not ready to do this without you,”
and I hope the wind carries it
somewhere your spirit still walks barefoot in the grass.

I’ve been holding on
to all the little things you forgot to take with you�"
your favorite mug,
your perfume on a scarf,
the way your laughter still lives in the walls.
Our house grieves with me.

I read old texts like scripture.
Replay voicemails like lullabies.
Because forgetting even a syllable of you
feels like a betrayal.
And I have nothing left to offer this world
but your memory.

The truth is�"
you were the gravity that kept my feet on the ground.
Now I float some days,
untethered.
Other days I fall too fast,
spiraling into moments that used to be ours.

And people try.
God, they try to say the right things.
“She’s in a better place.”
“At least she’s at peace.”
But none of them saw the way you fought�"
how you stayed soft even while breaking,
how you held everyone else up
while your own heart was slipping away.

They didn’t see the goddess in you.
The way you turned pain into poetry
without ever needing a pen.

You gave me more than life.
You gave me language.
You taught me how to speak truth
even when my voice shook,
how to leave a room with dignity
and return only when I chose to.

You were a storm and a sanctuary.
A wildfire and a lullaby.
You taught me that love was a verb,
not a promise.

And now I use that verb
every time I survive.
Every time I rise from bed
when the weight of grief
tries to fold me into the floor.

I still talk to you.
Still argue with you.
Still wait for signs.
Like the flicker of a lightbulb.
Like a cardinal landing on the windowsill.
Like that one song playing
when I swear I needed you most.

Maybe I’m making it all up.
Maybe I’m not.

Maybe this ache I carry
is just the shape of your absence
pressed into my chest,
and I’m learning to wear it like armor
instead of chains.

They ask me who I am without you,
and I tell them�"

I am your echo.
Your unfinished sentence.
The page you left open.
The daughter who remembers
even the way your silence sounded.

And when they say,
“Time heals,”
I nod.
But in my bones, I know�"
this isn’t something time erases.
It’s something I grow around.
Like roots twisting around stone.
Like trees reaching through broken glass
just to find the light again.

So I carry on.
Not because I’m okay.
Not because I’m strong.
But because love like this
doesn’t know how to die.

It just changes shape.
It becomes my breath.
My fight.
My truth.

And when I speak�"
I speak for both of us.

Author's Note

It’s been a long time since IVE posted on here. I hope you can tell from this current poem how hard I have worked to find my style and my voice and also my editing !!!