Creative Non-fiction by Tracie Adams
I will lift you from embryonic waters, my heart a purring engine against your buttery skin. I will kiss your rosebud lips, feed you from my own body. You will wrap tiny fingers around my thumb, blink up at me with eyes ancient as starlight, and I will whisper fragile promises, sheathed in hope as delicate as your crocheted blanket.
You will grow long curls down your back. I will gather them into ponytails with ribbons and bows, buy you that kitty sweatshirt that slips from one rounded shoulder, wait in folding chairs at dance recitals, clap until my palms sting. I will pinch your soft belly and say it is perfect, nothing to worry about. While you dance and skip, I will cut calories, jog around a track, count the pulses of my racing heart—each beat a measure of what it is losing, the muscle thinning, starving for what it is denied. You will watch as I shrink my flesh and frame, carving myself smaller and smaller as you grow.
You will disappear little by little: untouched lunches, hollow cheeks, silence where laughter used to live. You will stop eating, stop smiling, stop telling me about your day. I will stand in the doorway of your room and my world will tilt, that trembling seam where wonder fades into dread, and I will understand with a clarity that will split me open. You will turn your back, crank the volume on your earbuds, canceling noise, canceling me.
I will wish I’d shown you a better way to live inside a body. You will wear long sleeves to hide scars, your lips will tremble, your eyes will dim. This time I will not look for past generations to blame. I will not look away in despair as the chambers of my heart strain against guilt and grief. I will listen when you speak and when you cannot. I will sit beside you in the dark. I will learn to feed us both back toward the light. I will hold you and I will not let go.
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Tracie Adams, author of two essay collections, Our Lives in Pieces (2025 IAN book of the Year Finalist) and Not Finished Yet (2025 BookLife Prize Finalist). Her work, nominated for the Pushcart Prize, Best of the Net, and Best Microfiction, is featured in over 100 literary magazines. Read more at http://www.tracieadamswrites.com and follow her on Twitter @1funnyfarmAdams.