you loved me for my innocence
my light
my newness

and like looking back on faded pictures
i sit shaking my head
at how little she knew
and that I wish I could bottle her fearless
trust

but god I can’t blame you
for loving a force of nature

because for all of it
you held her as best as you could

with terror in your eyes and trembles in your hands
that she’d leave

because she was too young to read the signs
and so she cries all the way home
to me

flipping through poems
and what I thought love only was