Smell
She had smelt like sweet milk, fresh sun-dried laundry from a spring day and ricotta drizzled in honey.
But then she began to explore the world beyond my breast and her smell changed. Still sweet and milky but now touched by the grass, the ocean salts, the banana she tried to put in her mouth, and the strangers who pulled her into their arms after her smile sang something sweet into their souls.
I long for her pure milky scent. It was my pathway back to joy when the darkness would rapture me still ~ when the shedding of my skin and reforming of my bones into the shape of a woman I did not know would pull me to the ground. Her honeyed ricotta scent that lived between the rolls of her neck could pull me back up.
While the postpartum darkness lingers in the corners of my mind so too does the magic potion of her newborn scent. On her clothes now too small, the milky unwashed joy remains.
Lily x