Poetry by Bree Bailey

              eflon CC


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I am Falling Hopelessly in Love with Someone Who Won’t Remember 
Our First Year Together

If there was a booger contest,
You would outsnot me.

You are nine pounds of icky,
and I’m certain there’s at least ten pounds

 the scale can’t pick up that is the weight
 of your radiance and life source.

You are heavy joy.
You weigh down 

my boots. My feet swear 
to never leave you.

You’re at the cusp of 
starting everything, 

full of new beginnings.
You are a timer that starts 

and has no end.
There is no end 

to all that you will
become.

You are the new home.
You are the perspiration of new first times.
(I’m so nervous for you to go to college)

These impossible new starts
that you’ll have and I will bear witness to.

And of those that you’ll have 
that I won’t bear witness to.

I never knew the ache 
that comes from loving someone so deeply.

I already mourn the moments I won’t be around to see,
and desperately pray for the moments that I will.

You make me weep over the heartaches you’ll have that 
I won’t be able to cheer you up from.

You make me terrified of the future and
so undeniably smitten with every new day.

You and infinity
and yesterday. 

You give me so much
doubt in everything I do.

Guilt never hung 
like a cold satin robe

until I ate two bites of food
while you cried for my attention.

You give me so much confidence
in everything I’ve done.

You are my inspiration.
You are my courage.

Pride never soared the way it did
when I held you close

 to my face and you
 burped into it like a truck driver.

You are this tiny package
of possibilities 

that will always astound me.
A tiny vessel of a testimony

that it does get better.
You make me better.

You are my motivational poster
that can’t affix itself to anything.

You are the pint-size pilot 
of my happiness 

that lacks all motor control 
and education.

How terrifying 
the thought.

You hold my life
in your tender 

and clumsy
nectarine hands.

I am thankful to be
uncharted.

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Bree Bailey (she/her) is a new mom who lives near NYC with her husband and her beautiful baby poet. Bree has written since childhood and tends to reflect on growing up, falling in/out of love, and family. Bree loves tacos, cheese, laughter, and friendship, but gets anxious and delirious if they happen at the same time. Follow her on Instagram @breebaileypoetry.

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