What Carries the World

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published Every name you had for love Came after hers Before time was marked, before a word made its first sound, she was already becoming a heartbeat beneath the silence, a knowing that needed no name. We call her Mother as if that is all she is but that word is too small, too shaped by our need, too softened by our guilt. She is not the word. She is the force behind it. Not the prayer, but the breath that dares to pray. She has been the doorway, the firelight, the place where hunger ends. She has been the question and the answer we were not ready to hear. We speak of strength as something loud. But she is the kind of strong that bends around breaking and still does not fall. We speak of love as something sweet. But she is the kind of love that bleeds and stays, that carries burdens no one sees and still opens her hands. She is not soft. She is the reason softness exists. She is not fierce. She is the thing that taught the storm how to speak without destroying. She has sewn herself into the background of your becoming not as decoration, but as foundation. And when the world forgets her, it begins to fall. Because she is not just the one who gave you life she is the one who kept it alive when you had no words for why you were crying in the dark. She is the love that stays when it is not returned. The hand that feeds even as it trembles. She is not light. She is the space in which it becomes possible. And if you must speak of her, let your words tremble a little. Let them come slowly, as if they know they are stepping into sacred ground. Because she is not waiting to be thanked. She is waiting to be seen. She does not ask to be seen. But still see her. In the silence she kept so your voice could rise. In the hunger she hid so your plate could be full. In the thousand names she gave up so you could write your own. Not with your eyes, but with your memory. Not with your praise, but with your return. She is not past. She is every breath that carried you forward when you could not stand. And even now, as you read this, she is holding some part of you you do not even know is broken. Call her what you will but know: no word has ever held her. And none ever will.