I am a mother,
but I love my mother
like she is my daughter—
a love that reaches across time,
tender and fierce,
something deep, ancient,
something beyond even blood.

When she is sad,
I become the hands she once was,
reaching back in time,
to brush her hair like I am the one
who knows the weight of her dreams.

She never had it easy—
my mother, the quiet warrior
who wore her wounds like jewelry,
the woman who folded away her laughter
in the bottom drawer,
saving it for some later that never came.

I wish I could hand her back
the stars she lost in her youth,
take her by the hand
and show her the world,
not as a mother, but as a woman
who danced in the rain once,
who had wild hopes
and tender secrets,
before we, her children,
arrived and became the center of her life,
before she wrapped herself
in the cloth of our needs.

I want to see her not as my mother,
but as someone who was wild once,
who had fire in her eyes and stories
tucked in the corner of her smile—
to hear her laugh, really laugh,
in ways that shake the dust from her spirit,
to know her as more than the hands
that made me whole.

I would give her the world
if I could,
turn her tears into stars,
let them light the path
to places she never reached.
She didn’t have it easy,
but she made life beautiful
with what she had.

I wish we could grow old together,
not just as mother and daughter,
but as two women,
laughing in a café somewhere,
talking about love,
about all the things
she sacrificed quietly
and all the dreams
she let drift away.

If I could, I would peel back the years,
unravel the lines life etched on her face,
and stand beside her as a friend
in the soft places of her dreams—
tell her she was always enough,
always more than just a mother,
always the wild, radiant soul
that I wish I could have known
long before I was born.

If I could, I’d take her hand
and say, “Let’s go,”
to the places she only saw in movies,
to the corners of the world
she whispered about in the dark.
Because she deserves that,
and so much more.

© reddragonfly