but I can't, so I'll just write this bit and leave it here and hopefully use it in a story someday

When I nurse Maika, she traces ancient hieroglyphs on my chest, her breath a sweet and sour benediction against my skin

I can trace a map of humanity in the skein of blue veins painfully close to the surface of her skin

(and when I said to Naoto that this may be the last baby I ever nurse and how that caused mixed feelings he said something like this: this may be the last time we ever have a baby at the age where little pieces of dried snot get stuck in their nostrils and blow in and out with their breath.

Ah, the dangers of marrying men who wear "in emergency break glass" t-shirts with condoms on them.)