Seven

At a young age, 

I learned of absence.

The absence of

security, protection.

The absence of

warmth, connection.

In the frigid air of February,

I felt the warmth leave me.

Like an alien in my own home,

I searched,

and I searched

and I searched.

Yet every face that returned my gaze

was not the face I was searching for.

In the desolate grasp of February,

security was stolen from me.

I continued to search,

panic rising,

and rising

and rising.

Until I met a face that beckoned me, terrified me:

the face of truth.

And in the suffocating web of February,

I struggled for a connection.

It was as if I was born again

at the age of seven,

crushed by only seven words.

I had been ripped prematurely of my cocoon, 

a monarch butterfly with torn wings,

forced to face the world with raw eyes.

“She got sick,

and didn’t make it.”

In the frigid air of February,

I felt the warmth abandon me.

I searched,

and I searched,

and I searched,

for any truth that was not mine.

At a young age,

I learned of absence.

The absence of

security, protection.

The absence of

warmth, connection. 

The absence of

my mother.