First,
Its your hair, long and out of control,
That I love.

Second:
Your eyes, strong and steady,
That entrances me.

Third,
Your body, full of protection and strength,
I cannot resist.

I have fallen in love with you.

I could spend hours looking into your eyes
As they burn into mine
Hours, romanticizing the way they make me feel

Grey and ice blue, slate colored and wild
The different shapes and colors they take
Depending on how you feel

When you want me:
A blinding turquoise
When you're unhappy:
Horribly cold slate
When you're content:
Storm grey

I have never feared you,
or your love.

I feel like you're slipping through my open fingers, our relationship falling like a handful of sand and no matter how fast or hard I clench my fist you find the little cracks to fall through

They say that when kids reach late teens, they fight, and grow distant, they grow to resent their parents and relationships fail, but I feel like I'm something new, our relationship isn't disappearing, you aren't fading into the distance, instead you are transforming into something new and I'm no longer your little girl.

Early today we went to the mall, and as we sat and ate lunch you said the strangest thing. You started talking about your job and about your feelings, treating me like an adult at last. The way I had always wanted you to talk to me my whole life. Like I was a friend and you could confide in me, because I still can't talk to you about the devastation I've encountered, but you finally understand that though I am still small my eyes hold wisdom and the gibberish you think I hear, comes like a melody in comprehensible packages. The codes you have come untangled to my ears, because I too have experienced your codes.

As a little girl I waited begging into my pillow that you would treat me this way, that you would talk to me like a friend. But the other day you did, and something was missing. I missed the way that you used to talk to me with your eyes shining carefully watching your words. The way that you would censer your topics as if I didn't understand the truth.

And now that you do this, that you talk to me like a new found friend you met at work, I miss being your little girl. I see the shinning eyes as your talk to my younger brother, and I miss the days you looked at me with that little kid look. Because now you see me with eyes of an equal, because I'm not your little girl anymore, because our mother daughter relationship has slipped through my fingers and the love you showed like chocolate kissing placed on the pillow of your every action, have been given to another and now my mother is slipping away.

Breathing in deep
where I am
on an exhale
I find myself
in warrior pose

but I am thinking
about us
shavasana
on your new carpet

I wish I was
flexible enough to play limbo
with your past and win

Instead I struggle
for balance so
when the instructor calls for
warrior three

I collapse into child’s pose
I collapse into your memory

I don't have the time to criticize you,
I'm too busy improving myself.

It's a wonder that those
who are so well fed
and so well read
are so full of dread.