People make it sound so easy. As if the act itself is trivial. But it isn’t.

It isn’t easy.

I still think about them sometimes. That little kid with so much hope in their heart and eyes full of wonder. I wonder where they went. Or if they’re even still here.

What would they think of me now?

Leaving behind a piece of myself as I grow hurts. I desperately want to hold onto it. To keep myself in one piece. Helplessly trying to hold together the shell of a child as I scream helplessly into the void for someone to help save me. To save who I was.

I miss them every day. The pieces that I had to leave behind. Watching from afar as sweet memories blur and fade.

I still feel them sometimes. Deep in my chest. And they’re hurting so hard and so deep. All they want to to curl up into their mother’s embrace with their favourite stuffed animal and cry until the world stops.

Sometimes I reach them. I speak to them. That sweet innocent voice that quietly says “I want to go home”. But they don’t know where home is. “Home” no longer exists. It’s not a place or a person. It’s a feeling I can no longer reach, and yet they cry for it. To go “home”.

Big, salty tears will slowly roll down my cheeks when my inner child is heard or spoken to. They can’t help but cry. No one ever listens when they do.

I speak in soothing tones to myself to ease the pain. To ease my inner child. To mother them and assure them that they’re okay. That they haven’t done anything wrong.

I wish I could hold them in my arms and place gentle kisses on their head, singing sweet lullabies to ease them into sleep.

It isn’t easy leaving behind pieces of myself. Especially when they keep desperately clinging to my leg, begging me not to go.

I’m so sorry, little me. There’s nothing I can do to save you…