for DP, after Raquel Salas Rivera
No one tells you a baby is forever. Even though you feel like you should know. No one tells you there are so many hours in the night. Or so many goddamn minutes in the day. No one admits you will feel moments of hate, that you will howl with gratitude when your friend refers to your child as an unrelenting jerk, or that you’ll be so fucking lucky if you have a friend like that. No one tells you a child is both mirror and light, that you’ll see reflected in vivid detail the deepest lesions of your being. Or that when things finally begin to ease, you’ll realize you are raising them to leave.
