As gently as I can I place him back, a calm gesture without a calm bone in my body,

Calm left my body weeks ago,

Not on his birth but the 40 hours leading to his birth,

I strive to remember what calm feels like,

It’s non existent at this stage,

When there is calm, I crash,

Sleep when baby sleeps,

The crash and sleep aren’t moments of calm but moments of exhaustion and escape,

Calm is aloneness

Calm is a warms summers day, the sea lapping against the red sand,

I crawl back into bed, seeking the refuge of closed eyelids,

Moments pass and the cries call me again,

Always a mama task,

The calm that was my own body is no longer mine,

The calm of my sleeping partner no longer exists for me,

And yet the woman in the grocery store says the same line to me each time

It goes by so fast.