A Letter to the Wiser One

Umme Salmaa Bharmal

Your Artist friend & Art facilator

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(from the Inner Me)

Dear You,

You know, from inside, you are still a child.

I see how you light up over little things —

a butterfly passing by,

clouds rushing and reshaping themselves,

colors bleeding into one another on paper.

You still love all of this.

You always have.

So tell me —

why do you pretend?

Why do you tell yourself,

I am an adult now,

I can’t do this?

Why do you believe you must behave

smarter, quieter, more “appropriate,”

more acceptable?

Inside, I never left.

I know when you stand in front of the mirror,

you see time on your face,

change in your body.

But why does that make you push me away?

Why does growing older mean growing distant from me?

Why do you keep trying to separate us —

the child and the adult —

as if one must disappear for the other to survive?

Can’t I remain here, alive inside you,

even if the world sees a grown woman?

Can’t softness coexist with wisdom?

Can’t curiosity breathe alongside responsibility?

Let me stay.

Without correction.

Without explanation.

Let us lie on the grass and watch clouds float by.

Let us paint without purpose.

Let us hug — tight, long, unafraid.

Let us cry when the heart is full or heavy.

Why must you protect yourself from me,

when I am the part that makes you feel alive?

I don’t want to be separate.

I want us to be together.

Not you and me —

just we.

Love,

The Child in You