I am a mother’s love—
forged in the fire of pain,
carved from the echoes of cries,
born through the tearing and the breaking,
through the hours of childbirth agony,
through the blood and the breath.

I am the voice that hummed you to sleep before you knew words, the hands that held you before you knew fear. I am the arms that wrapped you when the world turned cold, the lips that kissed your wounds before they even had time to bleed.

I am the whisper in the dark
when your nightmares claw at you.
I am the light on the horizon,
the constant, the unshaken.
When the world turns its back on you,
I am still standing there, waiting.

I am the ache in my chest
when you don’t come home,
the prayer that leaves my...