My girl wanted the whole world to hear her.
Her wailing - music to my ears.
We lay skin to skin for hours while the world went ‘round.
Sometimes in the night, she beckons me
Not because of a nightmare.
Not for a cup of water.
Not because she thinks it’s morning.
“Hold you” she says in her sweet, soft voice.
Her hands stretched out to me.
My little girl wears plastic heels that go “click click click” down the hallway.
She pairs them with a tie die shirt and sparkling fairy wings.
She rocks gray leggings with light green grass stains on the knees.
She doesn’t care what the world may think,
But she does a spin for me.
My little girl follows my little boy everywhere.
She loves him relentlessly.
When he trips and falls, she stomps her foot furiously on the floor until it’s sorry for ever hurting him.
She loves fiercely.
She won’t be ignored.
Little girls grow up, and so will mine.
She will grow up knowing what it’s like when her daddy comes home from work and outstretches his arms for her embrace.
She will grow up feeling safe simply because he is there.
She will grow up treasured.
My little girl will be free to be herself.
Her bold, bright, silly self.
Someday my hallway will no longer echo the sound of her calling me in the night,
Or the click-click-clicks of her plastic heels.
So I will mourn my baby while I watch her grow.
But watch her grow I shall.
--Michelle R., Adult