“The most powerful relationship you will ever have is the relationship with yourself.”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

I wish I had been kinder to you.
Loading you down with duty
that cut into your shoulders,
the bag of letters meaningless.

I wish I had been more soft-spoken.
Given you fewer critiques and
more hurrahs.
Those harangues about
keeping the house clean
should never have been spoken.
You were already broken.

I know I was cruel to you
many times over.
Watching you so you could
not let down your guard.
I made life hard.

I speak to you, that woman
in the mirror who grows
dearer as the clock winds down.
I see you now more clearly
as the girl I used to push around.

I try to be kinder to you these days.
Now adorned with ease and sorrow.
Your beauty now is faint of brow.
And yet I love you fully now.

Vicki Woodyard