For mom

If love had a voice, it would sound like her. 
Like the first spoonful of warm soup when my throat aches, like my name said softly after a day that broke me… just a little too much.

She is the ocean I learned to float in, the lighthouse I looked for when storms taught me how dark the world can get.
She is the reason I believe that kindness is still a currency worth spending freely.

She is the quiet miracle who gave me everything, before I even knew how to ask!

She is the poet. And I?
I am her poem, still learning to carry her rhythm  in my bones.

When the world tried to turn us cold, she stayed soft.
And that softness… God! that softness was never weakness.
It was an armour. Armour made of soft hands  that held back hurricanes.

Her eyes have always searched for  beauty in the smallest things.
But for me? She is the most beautiful thing  in every room she walks into. 

She is the strength in my knees when the world shakes.
The pillar that held every version of me until I could stand on my own.

She is my anchor, my horizon, my first home.
The reason the world doesn’t feel entirely unkind.

I don’t say it enough.
But I love her.
In every way I know how; in the choices I make, in the patience I try to carry, in all the ways I remember everything she taught me without even realizing.

Her name is the softest and the only prayer that I know. A quiet kind of magic that wraps around my soul and whispers, “You’re okay. You’ve always been okay!”

If love had a voice, it would sound like her.
And it would be the most beautiful thing this world has ever heard.

- Neha Sharma