The Children We Once Were
Many of us carry wounds from adolescence long after we’ve grown up. The Children We Once Were is a poem about self-doubt, the cycles we inherit, and the quiet but powerful choice to give the next generation what we never received.
We are young once,
victors and victims of self-doubt,
we struggle for acceptance,
adopting activities and a lifestyle
mired in destructive behavior.
Though adolescence is to blame,
many never find their way back.
As they become parents
of the children they once were,
it is innately generational
to learn and teach
with hands of experience,
shaped by all you’ve known.
To give a child what they need
is a need not your own,
but a call to the recesses of your mind,
to memories of what you desired as a child.
Only then are you given an ear
to speak to your child,
not about what they do wrong,
but about what they do well.
Feed their mind,
lift them up,
shower them with praise,
tell them…I you love.
Healing doesn’t always begin with yourself. Sometimes it begins the moment you look into a child’s eyes and decide the cycle ends here.
