more and more i find myself reaching for my mother. i don’t know if it’s just the fact that i’m growing older, or that i’m just growing more distant from her. but lately, every time i find myself getting sad, it feels like my entire soul is stretching itself in an attempt to be near her, like a sunflower that has been starved of the sun. she wasn’t exactly always kind to me, and certainly wasn’t a good parent, but she was human in a way that i am human. in a way it seems no one around me can ever comprehend. the people around me now are different. raised different, think different. but my mom and i were grown within this small bubble, so high up from the rest of the world that it felt like we could see the rest of it better than anyone on the ground.

and now i have to navigate all this without her. and a lot of times i find myself tearing apart my body trying to find pieces of her. there is still hope we could reconnect one day, but it’s never going to fill the holes i have torn into myself.