These Things Are Not in Order

I forgot what I was saying mid-sentence. You smiled for the first time at 6 weeks — or was it 5? I can't remember.

Tuesday smells like spit-up and dry shampoo. My mother said enjoy every moment over the phone, between advice I didn't ask for, before I knew what moments cost.

3 AM. The ceiling fan counts rotations. I was someone once who slept through alarms, who had a favorite restaurant, who finished hot coffee.

You reach for my face with both hands — this happens later, but I'm thinking about it now.

I showered yesterday. Maybe the day before. You were born and I became a stranger to myself, which sounds like grief but felt more like dissolving.

First steps come after this. First words. First mama aimed directly at me like an arrow I didn't know I needed.

Right now you're sleeping on my chest. Right now I am crying for no reason. Right now I am the most tired and the most full I have ever been —

and these things are not in order, and none of it makes sense, and I would not rearrange a single second.

Author's Note:

Motherhood scrambled my sense of time. Some days I'm grieving the woman I was before, and five minutes later I'm overwhelmed with a love I don't have words for. I wrote this poem for every mom who feels like she's living out of sequence — you're not lost, you're just in it.