Instructions For Becoming a Mother

Wake before your body is ready.

Feed the baby.

Feed the silence.

Feed the despair.

Forget you were hungry to begin with.

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Hold your baby close.

"Enjoy these moments, you'll miss them."

Hold them so close that you forget where your skin ends,

and theirs begins.

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Count the diapers left on the shelf.

Count the minutes until they go to bed.

Count the pieces of yourself you lost.

Count the months since you last had a conversation about you.

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Learn to answer to "Mom".

Learn to forget your own name.

Forget the woman you dreamed of being.

Forget the mirror;

you don't know her anyway.

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Trade books and degrees for bottles and burp cloths.

Trade dreams and whimsy for grocery lists and summer camps.

Trade solitude for sleeplessness.

Trade sleep for safety.

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Swallow the loneliness like cough syrup.

[Your purpose has been fulfilled.]

Smile at the PTA meetings.

[Such a good incubator.]

Cry in the car.

[Didn't you get everything you wanted?]

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Wait until the children have grown.

Look in the mirror.

Whisper "I think I used to be somebody.

A self.

A woman."

Hope the echoes bring her back.