I remember swapping stories of early parenting, my hairdresser and I,
Me sitting in the chair, struggling to focus my stare,
Her reminiscing on the sleeplessness, how she’d tell herself:
“I’m only tired, I’m not gonna die”,
“I’m just tired, I’m alright”.
But I… I don’t feel there is anything ‘only’ or ‘just’ about it.
I often wonder how sleep deprivation was used as torture but was it ever used to murder?
I am like the walking dead after yet another night of musical beds.
Hugs and earplugs, retucks and wipes, kisses and feeds,
simultaneously tugging at my heart strings while making my eyes sting.
To the bottom, once again, go my own needs.
I feel like the sacrificial lamb.
Only this poor creature, clearly in pain, doesn’t even get the honour.
Laying there fantasising about butting heads – if only I could be the ram.
It’s so unfair that nature has designed this perfect pair:
My boobs and my baby; a dyad of perfection.
And yet this mother’s body still needs the same as it’s maiden’s – I give you an F for Fail, evolution!
Or is it because breastfeeding skipped my generation?
Will it feel easier for my daughter, if she has children?
I
am
here
this
morning,
at half mast cognition,
struggling to speak or listen,
mourning
this
here
am
I.
*This is a new poem, penned in preparation for my performance in the SA Spoken Word state final of The Australian Poetry Slam competition. If I had tied or won, I needed to have a second poem ready for a “slam-off” or the national grand final at Sydney Opera House. This was one of my contenders. There are a few other new ones too, as the words and their cadence just kept pouring in. The whole experience was inspirational; it opened another door in the creative little language house that lives in my head, with a direct path to my heart.
** I am going to re-publish my poetry e-book, “You must be so tired”, with this, and all my new mum-poems, in early December – before my mum-self turns five and in time for Christmas – along with the option to buy it in tangible, paper-back format.
*** I think I will stick to my preferred mode of writing & publishing poems rather than speaking & performing them! The (sometime) silence & solitude is much more suited to me than the stage & the shakes.
#fatigue #sleepdeprivation #earlyparenthood #nighttimeparenting #needsdontstopatnight #babies #toddlers #preschoolers
#RnR #RestNRelaxation #Rest #Relaxation #MyRnR