Baby. And Me.

It floats up at me as I lie in a solitary bath, my busy belly. Pops up above the soapy surface, quivering like a potential-filled jelly, bursting with ideas but incumbating not yet, baby. A potential baby. Potential.

It pokes itself out over the jeans that will not do up, strains against the favourite dress that now becomes a sad memory; I throw it out. Someone else can be betrayed by it. Traitor baby.

He is desperate for it, I can see it. He skipping jubilantly around the yellow-walled house in his dreams, swapping the desk for the crib and the books for baby bottles and shelves for photographs of we three, him, baby and me. Him and baby. And me.

I lie alone in a hot bed on steamy summer nights and baby stops me sleeping. Baby insists on being heard, even before it is meant to be demanding my nights from me. Damn you baby, let me sleep, baby. Leave me alone, baby.

I rest my hand pensively on the expanse, soft from the moisturiser and from the warmth of love, waiting for the kick that comes before I wake and realise either that this is a dream, or that this is my dream all along.
Baby, why do you do this to me? I was happily waiting to become ready for you. You didn't need to push me, baby. You didn't need to go this far. I am scared. You are fiercer than disease, darker than cancer. I can disappoint you. I can fail you. I can become the worst version of myself because of you.

You are uncharted territory and at the same time my companion in it, the sinister and melancholy friend with the big eyes, holding the map but holding it upside down. My up is your down. In a few months, you will push yourself away from me and then cling to me forever again. I am to give birth to my own heart and brain and chase them around for the rest of time, making them better and keeping them growing.

Will you have my hair, his eyes, my love of fresh flowers and his fear of heights? Will you bring about peace, feed the hunger, be rich, be poor, be clever, be stupid, be brave, be a coward? Who will you fall in love with, who will you marry? Who are you, in there? What am I bringing into the world, for people to judge me on?

I find myself holding my belly tight as I fall asleep, holding you to me and trying to keep myself together, stopping us shredding when you escape, knowing this is the last time I will hold my whole self together, before part of me walks out and away. Like a light on the water or a lantern floating in the sky. You will be my message in a bottle. I will teach you to read and write.