six years old

I wasn't a sister- I was a stand-in mother with shaky hands, burning pop-tarts and whispering lullabies with a voice too small to soothe the world. Mama vanished like smoke while I held babies in blankets and fear like a knife behind my ribs. I learned to pour cereal before I could spell my own name, changed diapers with cartoons playing in the background, praying she'd come back before we ran out of milk or each other. But when I was nine, they scooped us up- wrinkled hands that didn't shake, warmth that didn't vanish. Grandma made toast and called it breakfast, not survival. Grandpa sat still long enough for the silence to feel safe. But I didn't know how to stop counting footsteps, checking locks, waiting for the storm that always used to come.