when you said, "you're doing great babe" – all 1,099 times
alex blogs
i loved you when
when you said, "you're doing great babe" – all 1,099 times
the children in this house
you graduated from the swaddle, you want your arms free
march + april film // 2023
dream job
again
dropping the kids off at school this morning felt wrong. like i was bubbling in B on a scantron but i knew the answer was C. my body was screaming at me, "take them home. it's not safe here. don't leave them here. why are you doing this? stop. keep them with you. stop!!"
but if i kept them home, i would have had to tell them why, and i can't place that burden on them.
i said goodbye 2 hours and 26 minutes ago. as far as i know, my children are still alive.
as i drove away from the girls' school, i watched them. watching their shadows, slowly spinning around and noticing the long shapes in the morning light. i studied their floppy pink and purple backpacks they each picked out the summer before kindergarten. i wondered if this was the last moment i'll ever see them alive. not in a hypothetical way. in a real way. in my body, at this moment, i am housing the possibility of the flurry of texts with other moms, sirens blaring up my street, young blood splattered across the rainbow rug and the Important Person reports stapled to the walls of their small classrooms. this isn't an alex-specific nightmare. it's not a freak accident. it happened to hundreds of families YESTERDAY.
i should have taken a picture of them this morning.
here's a thought – and hear me out –
fuck this.
lazy b // feb 2022
im sorry my son
1/30/23
Today was the first day
That I didn’t nurse you
It will haunt me for a long time
That I gave up – right? I did, didn’t I?
If I had just tried harder
Sacrificed a little more
Slept less
Pumped more
Hydrated
Meditated
Maybe it would have been enough
I hate whatever part of me said “it’s too hard”
I’m embarrassed
I’m sorry
I’m so sorry
For robbing the poor to feed to rich
But my son I promise
To give you every drop of
myself
I’ll mix it in with each scoop of formula
I know it’s not as good but
I know what I can’t do
Breastfeeding is an alchemy that might as well be
Trigonometry
no matter how hard I try
I still —
I’m sorry
I’ll always wish I could have kept going
I’m haunted by my reasons for stopping
Maybe they aren’t good enough
But I hope I
will be
I have cried so many tears and I will cry liters more as those sacred days of feeding you fade farther and farther out of our life. The aching is overwhelming, it feels like being stuck in the ocean and not being confident enough to swim back in, but also being too tired to stay out in the water. My whole body is crying, this kind of heartbreak is worse than any cheating boyfriend, because it’s you my son
MY 2022 ON COLOR FILM
3:17 am, as i nurse // jan 7, 2023
Lit by one watt
10 day countdown // 12/9/22
i ate three more dates