Dani

You grow

and I cheer—

loudly,

bravely,

as if my heart isn’t cracking

with every inch you stretch away from me.

You lift your head,

roll,

reach—

and I smile so wide

I hide the sting.

Because every first

is also a last.

The last time

you’ll need me

in that way,

for that thing,

at that hour.

Your clothes shrink.

The room shifts.

The quiet hum of newborn days

fades into laughter,

footsteps,

questions I never thought

I’d hear from someone

who once lived

beneath my ribs.

I wanted you to grow.

I want you to grow.

But oh—

there’s grief

stitched into every milestone.

A letting go

no one warned me would come

so soon,

so soft,

so sharp.

And still—

I’ll keep watching,

keep clapping,

keep weeping

in the folds of your old blankets,

grateful

and grieving

for every version of you

You slept while I bled,

while I bore the weight of worlds—

our world, reshaped, torn open,

stitched with silence.

You paced, yes,

but not the floor at 3 a.m.

not the room with cracked cries,

not the stretch marks of my mind.

I handed you a child

and you held him—

but not the chaos,

not the ache that nestled in my bones

like a second birth.

You asked what was wrong.

I smiled like a martyr,

drowning in milk and fury,

screaming inwardly into muslin cloths.

Your hands stayed clean.

Mine shook with fury

at nappies, at bottles, at your quiet phone,

your unfaltering sleep,

your freedom cloaked in oblivion.

This isn’t what I meant

when I said we’d raise a life together.

This is me,

raising us both from rubble

while you ask when dinner will be.

But still—

I loved you before the storm,

and I stare into its wreckage,

wondering if love can grow

in this aftermath.

Wondering if you will meet me