forest hazel
The Girl Who Grew Too Soon
She was ten
With stars still caught in her hair
And dreams soft as paper wings,
But the world came early
In whispers, in wires,
In the voice of a friend
Who was never truly safe.
She learned how to lie before she learned how to heal,
How to shrink herself into silence,
How to send pieces of her soul
To people who never earned them.
She wasn’t taught what love was
Only how to imitate it,
How to survive the fire
By pretending she wasn’t burning.
Mom became a stranger,
Home became a cage,
And friendship felt like something
She could only find in voices twice her age,
Through a screen that saw her
But couldn’t hold her.
She listens to sad songs like prayers,
Lets the lyrics say what she can’t,
Wishes someone would ask
And mean it when they say,
“Are you okay?”
She thinks about running
Not because she wants to die,
But because no one ever taught her how to live
Without aching.
And still,
In the quiet,
In the lonely 4 a.m. silence,
There’s a part of her that hopes
Just a little
That maybe
Somewhere
She can start again
dreamy glen
chrome raven