The Lessons Gifts

Some come as lovers, some as kin,

To light a war we hold within,

Not all who raise us help us grow,

Some only teach us how to go.

I used to curse the ones who left,

Mistook their going for a theft,

But time revealed they came to show,

The parts in me I’d yet to know.

Some cracked me open, some were kind,

But each one shaped, the state of mind,

And those I begged, the most to stay,

Were often sent to walk away.

They left behind a raw terrain,

Where I could sort the gold from pain,

Though silence held and love fell far,

It marked the path to where we are.

I used to ask why love would break,

Why hearts would burn for learning’s sake,

I thought I lost when they withdrew,

But pain became the lens I grew.

So now I ask: What was the gift?

What mirror moved, what fault did shift?

And when I see, I set it free,

The love, the loss, the lesson… me.

Cathrine Hottran 2025