Dear little world-dweller,

scratched from head to toe

and scarred with smiles,

crafting unicorns from bruises—

remind me how you

lived your nightmares

but still believed

dreams

wouldn’t always just be dreams.

Dear little chatterbox,

whose words were all your own,

which met the ears

with a cold breeze

and a warm rain,

like something harsh and soft at the same

time—

remind me how you stayed true,

above their doubts and objections,

above their despondency 

and pessimism,

riding in circles around them,

because once they got you moving,

you couldn’t stop

(that’s the one thing

that hasn’t changed).

Dear bright-eyed and bushy-tailed,

with only good thoughts

behind your hazel veils—

remind me what it meant

to be whole,

to hold a corrupted world with love,

smoothing out a Band-Aid over

a bullet hole’s blood flow.

Dear younger me—

did you become a hazy, raspy memory

because of all you never did,

or all you’d ever seen?

Did the voices burrow deep inside you?

Or did you bury yourself inside me?

I’m so sorry 

that I 

lost you along the way.

If I had known

you could disappear

in the flutter of an eye,

I never would have dared the darkness

and turned my back for that split second—

I would have watched longer

and fought harder.

I wonder at how I never cried

at my grandfather’s wake

when you were still here—

how tears did not begin to fill my sockets

until you were misplaced.

You,

dear me,

were my greatest loss,

and always have been.