Field Note No. 12

What Cannot Be Carried

The hardest part of living on this island is knowing I will not stay.

One day, without announcement, I will leave.

And none of the versions of the babies who lived here will come with me.

Not the way they curled into my chest.

Not the weight of their sleep in my arms.

Not the sound they made when they breathed beside me in the dark.

Those versions belong to this place.

I will carry no proof of them except memory.

No physical evidence.

Except the way my body remembers what it meant to be needed so completely.

The island gives generously, but it does not allow souvenirs.

It asks only that I stay fully while I am here.

That I look closely.

That I love without trying to preserve.

One day, the babies will walk away from this shoreline in new forms.

Taller, louder, more independent than I can imagine now.

And I will stand.

Hands empty, heart full, knowing I did not lose them.

I lived with them in the only version of time where they were ever this small.