By Sophia Krich-Brinton

5 seconds: pain like burning, she’s blue

5 minutes: she nurses, the sensation like fingernails in my veins

5 hours: my body aches, I can’t sleep, she should be with me, is she scared

5 days: everything hurts, I’m so tired, the NICU incubators all look the same

5 months: pumping at work, I crave her weight in my arms, dread the sleepless night

5 years: she wears new green sneakers as she locks her bike up at school. Her joy is like lightning, like butterflies, like a free-falling mountain stream. In the distance, two kids hold wood chips like guns.

I smile and hide my terror.

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Sophia Krich-Brinton (she/they) lives in Colorado with her partner, kids, and cats. They write weird stories at dawn when the world sleeps and the cats try to sit on her keyboard. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in HAD, Ghost Light Lit, and Moss Puppy Magazine. When not writing, she boxes, plays the banjo, and goes backpacking. Find them at sophiakbrinton.com or on Twitter/Instagram at @sophiakb_writes