Momma Please

I carry your name like a prayer

tucked behind my ribs,

every breath shaped by worry

I try not to speak out loud.

I watch you push through pain

with that familiar smile,

the one that says I’m fine

even when your body is clearly asking

for mercy.

You’ve always been strong

stronger than you should have had to be.

The kind of strong that doesn’t rest,

that doesn’t ask,

that believes needing help

means failing somehow.

But Mom,

I see the way your shoulders tighten,

the pauses you don’t think anyone notices,

the way exhaustion settles into your bones

like it’s made a home there.

And it scares me.

I wish you knew

that asking for help

doesn’t make you weak.

It doesn’t erase everything you’ve survived.

It doesn’t undo the years you carried us

when your own hands were shaking.

I wish you would call.

Just once.

Not because you can’t do it alone

but because you don’t have to.

I wish you could see yourself

the way I see you:

not as someone who must endure everything,

but as someone worth protecting,

worth easing,

worth showing up for.

I lie awake wondering

how much pain you hide behind that stubborn strength,

how many moments you grit your teeth through

just so no one worries.

But I worry anyway.

Every day.

Every quiet moment feels louder

when I think about you hurting in silence.

I want to help you the way you helped me,

to be the steady hands this time,

to shoulder the weight

so you don’t have to keep proving

how unbreakable you are.

Please, Mom

let someone in.

Let the phone ring.

Let help reach you

before you convince yourself

you don’t deserve it.

You’ve given so much of yourself

to everyone else.

I just wish,

for once,

you’d choose yourself too.

Because loving you

means fearing the moments

when your strength asks too much of you

and all I want

is to see you rest,

to see you heal,

to see you stay.