In My Dreams
In my dreams,
my mother didn’t throw me out
like garbage,
still warm, still breathing,
still hoping she might change her mind.
She held the door,
not to shut it,
but to say:
“You are always welcome. Even when you fall apart.”
In my dreams,
she didn’t flinch at my sadness,
didn’t call me names
to cover the silence
of her own emptiness.
She brought a blanket,
not a threat.
She asked what I had eaten,
not where I had failed.
She didn’t take away my keys
like a warden
locking a cell behind her.
She didn’t choke me,
once,
in silence,
because of my brother—
because she believed
I had come to break what she never protected.
And when I looked at her,
I didn’t see the war behind her eyes—
I saw a woman
who chose love
instead of fear.
But I wake.
And the door is still closed.
And the warmth
is mine alone to carry now.