Milk and Tears: A Poem About Breast Milk and Formula

Milk and Tears: a poem about transitioning from breast milk to formula

My breasts ache and weep
As my supply slowly dries up
Crying the milky teardrops
I know will not sustain my girl

Once her eyes lit up only for me
Now she is fixated on a bottle

I love and hate instant formula
I can be free to be more like myself again
I can have longer days out
Just me
My husband can experience the joy
of feeding our baby
Just him
She is getting more nutrients everyday
Even reaching for the bottle all her own
Just her

But I long for the late evenings when
She would nestle against my breast
and fall asleep with my body as her warmth and comfort
Just us

Now that she’s bigger
Just me
Feels so alone
So foreign, so heavy
I feel my breasts drip again
Crying the tears I am afraid to shed
Even when it’s just me

Alexandra Rudner

Mrs. Alex Z Rudner is about three ounces of feminist fury. Her hair is insured for $100 in Starbucks gift cards. Originally from Southern California, she is a devoted wife, an animal lover and the proud stay at home mother of a baby dragon in Memphis, Tennessee. The child was "not of woman born," and so she must fulfill the prophecy and slay the Scottish King.