To reach a child, you kneel- not with your eyes alone, with your spine and pride too, till your shadow become a shelter.
She pushed me, fists like failed words, all the anger in her eyes, a language for all she couldn't give words to. I bit back lectures, giving way to silence.
And I let it speak: "𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐼 𝑎𝑚 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒".
Through it, echoed the words, apologizing for an err not mine, melting her anger like frost at dawn, like a breath held too long, released.
That's when I knew, this is how I loved you, not by fixing, but standing guard, at the door of your wounds.
But some storms only end when the sky drowns itself. Now I kneel alone, repeating my apology, to the air, to the child in you, to the silence that took you away.