Who Did The Loved Children Become?

 

Did they grow up soft

because the world never asked them to harden?

Did they walk into rooms

without first shrinking?

Did they take risks

without calculating the cost

of disappointing someone

who only loved them on condition?

Did they believe in themselves

because someone else did first?

Or did they get bored—

no chaos to survive,

no wounds to explain?

Did they go looking for something to break

just to feel the shape of struggle?

Did they become

the kind of parents they had?

Did they apologize

when they were wrong—

not because they had to relearn love,

but because love taught them right?

Did they make art

without bleeding for it?

Did they sit in silence

and feel peace instead of panic?

I don’t envy them.

I just wonder

who I might’ve been,

if someone had softened the world for me first.

If someone had called me enough

before I called myself invisible.

Would I have been softer?

Would I cry without apology,

and breathe without bracing for impact?

Would my shoulders sit lower,

my laugh ring cleaner,

my joy come without the taste of rust?

Would I have let people in

without planning my escape route?

Would I still write—

but not as a survival skill?

Would I be whole,

and not just functional?

Are the loved children thriving—

or just surviving?

Should I be grateful

that I was forged in fire instead of clouds—

because the world is not kind

and I am equipped to survive it?

Should I pity them

for not being made for this world,

or be glad they at least

tasted peace?

I don’t need an answer.

But I ask anyway.

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