Even If the Walls Were Cracked

Poetry has always been a way for me to explore the complicated spaces between love and pain. Some relationships shape us in ways we do not fully understand until we grow older. The bond between a mother and child can be one of the most powerful and complicated relationships we experience.

“Even If the Walls Were Cracked” is a reflection on distance, forgiveness, and the quiet hope that healing is still possible. It speaks to the idea that home is not always perfect, but it can still be rebuilt with patience and understanding.

This poem is written as a letter — a moment of reflection from a daughter who is learning that love does not have to disappear simply because it once felt broken.

Dear Mother

I used to believe

mothers were meant to heal

to stitch broken hearts

with careful hands.

Maybe you tried

in ways I could not see then.

Love, I’m learning,

does not always arrive gently.

You gave me a life

when the world was already heavy,

and we carried our silence

like something fragile between us.

My heart reached for yours

more times than I knew how to say.

But we did not always know

how to touch without hurting.

Still, something in me

kept hoping for peace.

You taught me strength—

not through comfort,

but through the quiet endurance

of standing when things fall apart.

Now I want to use that strength

to build something different.

Not perfection.

Just a place where we can speak

without fear in our voices,

where listening does not turn to anger.

You are still my first home,

even if the walls were cracked.

And homes can be rebuilt

slowly,

brick by brick,

with patience,

with forgiveness,

with time.

I am not the child I was,

and perhaps you are not the same either.

So I am reaching out again

not with blame,

but with hope.

Because love

does not have to survive in fragments.

It can grow.

It can heal.

It can stay.

And I still want it

to stay between us.