by Alpha Chizuzu

Your little hand clings on to my finger 

Yearning for comfort

Your eyes open wide, your vision still blurry

Your face, not fully formed

Inarticulate but still so beautiful I look down at you  suckling on your thumb with such keenness

Your thumb being the only meal you have ever known

I watch you breathe in these first few hours out of many

You are perfection and I am terrified 

 

I’m terrified that I have already failed you

Failed to fix the world outside this crib before you step into the light to make sense of all those noises

Look into the crowds to give faces to those voices

I’m terrified that you are here too soon 

Before I got the time to re-arrange the living room

 

Your uncle is in that living room 

So is King from your brother’s soccer team 

Oh wait the gardener cutting the grass in your bedroom 

The friendly cleaner scrubbing the surfaces of your sheets

Your friend’s boyfriends and their friends too 

Tell me how many people can fit in one room?

Can they not see that you are too small for them to consume? 

 

I’m terrified that when the day comes I will fail to cover you That you will be the short service  while they wait in line to devour you 

I know you will fight; Lord knows I’ll show you how

But I’m terrified that I won’t do it well enough

Look at you curled up in that onesie 

Suckling on your thumb with such keenness 

How could they not desire you even before your time has come?

It is their nature, medium rare, not done but almost there

Look at you, look oh look!

You are perfection and I am terrified.