Poems by Rose

Little Girl, Listen

 

Little girl, listen—

 

I know the black-and-blue beneath your sleeve,

the red crescent pressed where skin learned to grieve,

the knees made to carry what was never their blame,

the numbers that blurred whenever they called your name.

 

I know the wall you studied for hours,

as though somewhere beneath plaster and paint

there had to be a window they forgot to build,

some narrow opening where the air remained.

 

So when I tell you that you were never bad,

believe the woman who remembers what you had—

a childhood framed with shouting in the rafters,

shame worked deep into the grain,

where every crack in someone else’s foundation

was somehow given your name.

 

But little girl,

 

you were never the damage.

 

You were the child living inside it,

learning which floorboards complained beneath a foot,

which doors should never be opened,

how small a body could make itself

when nowhere in the house felt safe.

 

And one day, you will leave.

 

Old houses have a way of following people—

a splinter beneath the skin,

a hinge still crying in the wind.

 

There will even be men who resemble those rooms:

different curtains, fresh paint,

another name above the door,

yet something in the air will feel terribly known,

and you may mistake familiar for home.

 

Until you learn

that love should not require

reading weather from another person’s face,

measuring every word,

memorizing every escape.

 

Then slowly, little girl,

you will rebuild—

 

beam by beam with better wood,

window by window until morning can enter

without asking permission first.

 

And one day,

someone small will come running through them—

 

your daughter.

 

She will leave laughter loose in the hallway,

her shoes placed neatly beside the door,

because you will teach her to care for what shelters her

without teaching her to fear the shelter.

 

You will show her the beams beneath every rule,

why one wall bears weight

and another was only placed there

because someone older said it should be.

 

You will teach her to ask why

until the question becomes a window,

until she can look through it herself

and choose which door to take.

 

You will not teach her

that being older makes someone right.

 

You will teach her

how to see for herself.

 

And somewhere beneath every room that you mend,

another little girl will begin again—

the one who learned early to live on thin air,

who stayed in that house

long after everyone left her there.

 

You will raise them together:

 

one child beside you,

growing forward,

 

one child inside you,

finally growing free.

 

Little girl,

 

that second child will be me.

 

Because I will become the mother we needed—

the hands that guide without leaving bruises,

the voice that explains instead of commands,

the love that does not demand silence

before it gives affection.

 

I will become the roof when the weather turns wild,

the door that opens instead of locks,

the woman who kneels to the height of a child

and tells her what someone should have told you:

 

You are beautiful.

 

You are worthy.

 

You were never the stain,

never the reason the windows shook,

never the thunder,

never the rain.

 

So come out of that house, little girl.

 

Leave the shame where it fell.

 

There is another home waiting,

where questions are allowed through every doorway,

where a child can understand the rules she is given

instead of fearing the person who gave them.

 

I know because I built it—

 

for the girl laughing down the hall,

for the woman rebuilding these walls,

and for the child still standing

where the old house stood,

 

waiting for someone to come back for her.

 

Little girl, listen—

 

I came back.

 

I built this home

 

for her,

 

for me,

 

for you.