My Raw Unscripted Life

I sign my name in permanent ink.
I carry the keys, the clock, the burden.
I am fluent in the world.

But when he speaks,
the sentence drops—
an old, familiar stone
disturbing the surface of the woman I’ve become.

“So I have a millionaire daughter.”

He offers it sideways,
praise leaning against the doorframe,
too shy to stand straight.

His mind is a blurring map now;
the names and dates are leaking out.
But the pride is anchored.
It doesn’t need a calendar to know where to sit.

He has forgotten the facts,
but he remembers the feeling of me.

One sentence,
and the years collapse.
I am the woman, the daughter, the girl—
growing an inch taller
just because he looked.