I fell in love with my brother’s friends,
each of them.

I daydreamed about running away together,
building a home and a family of our own.

I could spend all day doing my chores and homework
and quietly, in the background of my mind,
I was creating a world where I was free
to hold crushes like fresh and tender daisy petals,
plucked up and released.

He loves me.

Skip the next part.

I love him.

This is how my happiness works.
It’s all internal.

Kept safe, priceless,
always being satiated with dreams and beauty,
collected treasures of the heart.

The child’s heart.

The one that doesn’t demand changes.
It simply adapts
with grace, curiosity,
and a radar for love
that is never really broken,
just trained.