The Quiet That Came After

It came

not like a storm—

but like the stillness after one.

When the world is technically safe,

but nothing feels whole.

The baby slept in my arms,

milk-drunk, pink-cheeked,

a miracle everyone said.

And I smiled for the photos,

captioned the moments,

but inside—

something was leaking.

It wasn’t tears.

I didn’t even cry.

It was more like

the absence of wanting to try.

To eat.

To talk.

To care if the sun rose

or if my hair was matted into a nest of neglect.

They say “enjoy every minute.”

But they never said

you might not feel anything at all.

That you might hold the baby you begged God for,

and still feel nothing but a hollow ache.

Not hate. Not regret.

Just…nothing.

They called it baby blues.

But I didn’t feel blue.

I felt beige.

Dust-colored.

Dull.

Like a lightbulb that hums but never turns on.

I Googled “postpartum symptoms”

in the dark with one hand

while the other held a bottle.

All the articles said it might pass.

But they didn’t say how to survive the waiting.

My partner didn’t understand.

He kissed my forehead and said,

“You’re doing great, babe.”

And I nodded,

too tired to explain

that it wasn’t about doing.

It was about being.

And I didn’t know who I was anymore.

I had become a ghost

haunting the nursery.

Rocking. Feeding.

Floating through 3 a.m.

like it was another planet

and I was its last citizen.

Friends dropped off casseroles,

held the baby,

praised his full head of hair.

I wanted someone to look me in the eye and say,

“How are you, really?”

But no one did.

Because the baby was beautiful

and I was supposed to be, too.

There were moments,

brief and holy—

like when he grabbed my finger in sleep,

or smiled in his dreams.

Those moments made me stay.

Made me try.

But they didn’t fix me.

I started writing letters

to the woman I was before.

Apologies.

Updates.

Warnings.

She never wrote back.

But I kept writing anyway.

Because maybe words could hold me

when no one else could.

Eventually,

I told my doctor.

She didn’t flinch.

Didn’t call me crazy.

She said, “You’re not alone.”

And suddenly,

I wasn’t.

There were pills.

Therapy.

Walks with strollers under sleepy trees.

A journal I tore pages from in the middle of the night

just to feel like something could be released.

And then—

months later—

the fog started to lift.

Not all at once.

But in gentle slivers.

I noticed the color of the sky again.

I laughed at a baby sock stuck to my sleeve.

I looked in the mirror and didn’t wince.

My son turned one.

And I finally felt like his mother.

Not a fraud.

Not a shell.

But someone who stayed.

Who fought through the quiet

and found her own voice

in the nursery night.

If you’re reading this,

with cracked lips and sleepless guilt,

I need you to know:

You’re not broken.

You’re becoming.

This ache does not define you.

But it is teaching you

how to hold space for your own survival.

One whispered “I’m still here” at a time.

⸻

Author’s Note

Postpartum depression isn’t always what people think it is. It’s not just tears or sadness—it can be silence, detachment, numbness, or the quiet guilt of wondering why something so beautiful still hurts so much.

I wrote this poem not just from personal experience, but from the shared voices of so many women who feel unseen during what’s supposed to be “the happiest time of their life.” If you’re in the middle of that fog right now, please know: you are not alone, and it will not always feel like this.

This poem is for the mothers who stayed. For the ones who are still becoming.

Thank you for reading. 💛