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Life • 

Poem I Wrote on My Daughter’s Third Birthday

By Renae Hilary

My daughter slept in on the morning of her third birthday. A fitting gift for both of us. I really needed to write. I’d been oddly emotional all week. Somehow, this birthday felt different, monumental. Possibly because, at three years old, she is finally her own, coherent little person. This birthday, we’re celebrating her. As opposed to her first birthday (oh my god, I gave birth one year ago and I still remember it?!). Or her second birthday (we kept her alive for two years! yay us!). Between getting everything ready to celebrate with her and all the other chaos of the morning, I had twenty minutes to sort out how I was feeling. Here’s what I came up with:


Stay, I whispered in your ear as I held you close to me, your cheek in my palm, your rib cage expanding into mine with breaths that contain every possibility. Stay. Let my body cradle yours for another moment, another lifetime. Remember not so long ago, when we shared this body? I made it as safe for you as I could. I took vitamins that tasted like old fish. I said no to whisky and trampolines. As far as I’m concerned, you still live here. After I put you to bed, I find the salt of dried tears crusted on my cheek and chest, pressed into my hairline. I wonder if they were yours or mine. I shield your body with mine on the playground, when a reckless older kid almost knocks into you. I ask him why he was so careless, surprising myself. I try to make the world answer to me, when it comes to you. I try. But I see you barely noticed the boy anyway. You’re already pulling me toward the uneven bars, your small hand on my palm, to watch the big girls practice gymnastics. Your wide eyes tell me that you, too, want to fly like that. Stay, I say with a squeeze of my hand. But you break free, running, growing, becoming.

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