Purple

I am hunched over you; blonde hair, orange t-shirt, tiny toes are all I see. You hold onto my two index fingers with a grip so tight it hurts. Moving on two feet is scary business, after all. I notice after a few more laps through the kitchen, around the dining room, past the TV, that my two fingers are purple.

I know that my heart is pumping the blood to them, but your grip stops it from reaching the tips of my fingers. Your grip, equal parts trust and fear, literally stops my hearts' beat. And it reminds me of how your heart used to depend on mine. How mine, in a less literal way, depended on yours. Bent over you, finger tips such a deep purple that it makes me begin to seriously worry about the fate of my two pointers, I let you hold on a few more seconds to savor the dependence. 

Just as you are working on letting go and taking off and walking on your own two feet, I am working on letting you go. It's selfish, I know. But I grew you, I fed you with my own body. You are so much a piece of me, but you are completely your own person. So for today I help you walk, knowing that one day soon you will walk all by yourself and the blood will return to my fingers.

But my heart may never beat the same.