Before the Sirens

Before the Sirens is a reflective narrative poem about the children who learn how to wait before they learn how to leave.

Told through the image of a child at a window, a road stretching into the dark, and a tomorrow carried like a promise, this piece explores hope, absence, longing, loyalty, and the quiet ache of believing that love will eventually find its way home.

It is for the ones who kept checking the door.

For the ones who left room at the table for people who never arrived.

For the ones who spent years mistaking hope for home.

For the ones who carried tomorrow in their pocket because it felt easier than saying goodbye.

Created from my home to yours, this poem is a place to sit beside the child who kept waiting—and the adult who finally returned for them.

Because sometimes the deepest wound is not the leaving.

It is the waiting.

The years spent looking toward the road.

The light left on.

The space kept open.

The quiet belief that if you stayed patient enough, loving enough, good enough, someone would come back.

And sometimes healing begins the moment you realize you were never waiting for someone else to return.

You were waiting for yourself.

The child at the window.

The adult who came back.