Canvas of Emotions: Painted in Poetry

Elegy for What I Never Had

I grew up in the shadow of your love, 
Not gone, but never fully here, 
Your heart was always elsewhere, 
A ghost I could never hold dear.

You were there, but only in body, 
A mother in name, not in truth. 
Your eyes were windows to another world, 
And I was left behind, without proof.

I mourn the childhood I never knew, 
The love I was supposed to feel. 
But instead, I learned the taste of second place, 
A wound time could never heal.

You chose them—lovers, needs, desires— 
Over the child reaching for your hand, 
And while you lived your life untethered, 
I drowned, struggling just to stand.

Now as an adult, I wear these scars, 
Invisible, but cutting me still. 
I grieve the mother I should have had, 
The empty space I can't refill.

It’s strange to mourn the living, 
To weep for a love that never bloomed. 
But I stand here, a child inside, 
In the garden of my heart, consumed.

So here’s my elegy, a song of what could’ve been, 
Of a bond that never tied, 
Of a daughter, left to wander, 
In the absence where love should’ve lied.