Madonna — the child in you is not the child in me.

There is no broken wing that you must fix,
no wounds that you must tend.
I flew the nest, but still —
you never set me free.

This world will ravage me.
It will rock me with brute force,
and I will wash up on many different shores,
limp and barely breathing.

But I don’t need saving.

You must trust my fighting breath —
to build my own nests in lofty spaces,
to sing with others in dancing trees,
to find a self I’ve never known
but always felt.

That is what it means to be free.

Madonna — the child in you is not the woman in me.