I was raised beneath a different roof,
A borrowed child, learning where I belonged,
While childhood laughter passed around me,
Leaving memories I could never fully hold.
Then came the day I returned to you,
Yet home did not feel like home anymore.
The walls were familiar, the faces were blood,
But something inside me remained at the door.
I carried the ache without knowing its name,
And wore stubbornness like armor on my skin.
You called me difficult, wild, and defiant,
Never knowing the loneliness I carried within.
My temper was fire, my words were sharp,
I fought the world before it could hurt me.
I laughed too loudly, joked when I was hurting,
Turning every sadness into a comedy.
I became the clown when my heart was breaking,
Hiding my tears behind a foolish smile.
You saw the anger burning in my eyes,
But never the tenderness I kept buried inside.
Mom, I remember the battles between us
The raised voices, the silence, the tears.
We fought over things I no longer remember,
But I remember how much I wanted you near.
You saw a stubborn daughter who would not listen,
A child with a temper too fierce to tame.
But beneath every argument, beneath every rebellion,
Was a daughter quietly calling your name.
Perhaps I was never the easiest child to love.
Perhaps my pride made tenderness hard to see.
But every wall I built around my heart
Was only a shield for the child still inside me.
I remember your eyes more than your words,
The warmth that sometimes broke through the cold.
Even in anger, even when we turned away,
A love neither of us could hold.
Now time has taken what I thought would remain,
And silence occupies the space where you stood.
I would give anything for one more argument,
One more scolding, one more moment of "you should."
I miss the days I once wished would end.
I miss the battles I was too proud to understand.
I miss the voice that once made me angry,
And the warmth of your familiar hand.
Now I speak to memories instead of you,
To photographs that cannot answer back.
I search your face for the love I once questioned,
And wonder what I failed to see along the way.
I was a heart of stone because I had to be,
Or so I told myself when I was young.
But stones do not ache when someone leaves,
And stones do not remember every memory.
So beneath this heart I taught myself to harden,
There remains a daughter who still cries,
Still longing for the mother she once fought,
Still searching for love in the quiet of her memories.
You are gone now, but the years remain,
Every quarrel, every smile, every tear.
And if I could return to those days once more,
I would hold you instead of turning away.
For all the love I could never say,
For every "I'm sorry" left unspoken,
For every moment I pretended not to care,
Mom, I remember.
And I still do.
A heart of stone,
A soul of tears,
And a daughter
Still longing for her mother
Across the distance of years.