I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking this is going to be another thing that tells you to breathe. To be present. To pour into yourself before you pour into others.

And I want you to know I would never do that to you.

What I will do is write you a poem. And then illustrate it. And then turn it into a cute little download you can actually hold in your hands, because I think beautiful things should exist in the physical world and not just live on a screen getting scrolled past.

This week I wrote two. One is about standing in the hallway between three rooms that all need something from you at the exact same time, not knowing which way to move, just standing there like a loading screen. You know the feeling. You’ve been the loading screen.

The other one is a haiku about dinner. Specifically about making dinner and then watching your child look at it like you served them a personal insult, and then eating it yourself over the sink because you’re not wasting perfectly good food. That haiku is called art. That haiku is called Tuesday.

Both poems are below. Forward them to someone who needs to feel less alone in the chaos. Or just read them twice and feel smug that someone finally said it out loud.

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Poem No. 1

✿Something That Doesn’t Break

they call me
from every room
like i am
the thread
holding the
house together

and some days
i feel frayed

but still
they reach for me
like i'm
something
that doesn't break

-jazmin montero

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Poem No. 2 — Mom-ku (like a haiku, but make it a whole situation)

✿The Negotiation

i make them a meal
they ask for something different
i eat their nuggets

-jazmin montero

17 syllables. Your entire Thursday night. Peer reviewed by moms across multiple time zones.

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For paid subscribers

✿The rest of this is for the ones who are in.✿

Both poems as illustrated, print-ready downloads are below. If you’re not a paid subscriber yet, this is your sign. It’s $7 a month. That’s one overpriced coffee you didn’t even finish.

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✷ Fresco Poetry Drop: March is forCapacity & Soft Joy

If you’re new here, welcome, this is something we do every month.

Each monthly theme gets its own poetry drop.
A small collection of words to sit with, screenshot, send to a friend, or come back to on a random Tuesday when motherhood feels a little heavier than usual.

This month’s theme is Capacity & Soft Joy.

If you want to feel the rhythm of how these land, you can read last month’s drop here:

✨ Around here, each month builds on itself.

Free readers get a piece of the rhythm: one poem, reflections from the month before, and a soft entry into whatever we’re exploring together.

Paid subscribers get the full experience.
The full poetry drop, the downloads, the pieces you can hold onto and come back to when you need them.

Think of it less like content…
and more like something you move through.

Get more from Jazmin Montero in the Substack app

Available for iOS and Android

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✷ The deep thoughts behind this month’s poems

Around here, we don’t save poetry for quiet mornings and perfectly lit corners.

We read it in the middle of real life, half-finished tasks, reheated coffee, someone yelling “mom” from another room like it’s their full-time job.

And if we’re being honest… most of us are showing up a lot.
Co-running a whole life with tiny humans, big feelings, and a mental checklist that somehow regenerates overnight.

There’s this quiet pressure that sneaks into parenthood.
No one announces it, but suddenly it’s everywhere.

In the way we measure our days.
In the invisible scoreboard no one agreed to but we all feel.
In the guilt that shows up the second we sit down before everything is done.

Like… why is resting feeling illegal.

It tells us that maybe, if we were just a little more organized, a little more disciplined, a little more on top of it, we could finally feel caught up.

And yet…

I don’t know a single mother who actually feels caught up.

Not one.

Just women doing their absolute best
and still wondering if it’s enough.

you were never meant to be the whole ecosystem.

Which is where this month found me.
Not in some big, cinematic breakthrough,
but standing in the middle of my house thinking:

what if the problem isn’t my capacity…
what if it’s the way I’ve been taught to relate to it?

Because capacity, the way we’ve been sold it, feels like something you should be able to increase if you just try harder.

Like a muscle.
Like a mindset.
Like something you can optimize between 5–7am if you just wake up earlier.

(respectfully… no.)

But the more I sit with it,
the more it feels like something else entirely.

Something softer.
Something seasonal.
Something that doesn’t respond to force…
but to listening.

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✷ On becoming someone new

Before I Held You (Poem #1)

This one feels tender.
The kind that sneaks up on you.

It started with a thought I couldn’t shake, the version of me who existed before I became a mother.

Not in a longing way.
Not in a “take me back” way.

Just… curiosity.

She still exists somewhere in me.

The version of me who could leave the house without a mental checklist.
Who could finish a thought all the way through.
Who didn’t carry this constant, invisible weight of love.

And sometimes I wonder what she would think of me now.

Would she recognize me?

Would she understand this kind of love,
the kind that is so full it’s almost disorienting.

The kind that stretches you in ways no one can prepare you for.
The kind that makes you more tired than you’ve ever been…
and more alive than you’ve ever been.

Motherhood is wild like that.

You can be deeply fulfilled
and deeply overwhelmed
in the same breath.

This poem became a conversation between those two versions.

Not one better than the other.
Not one more evolved.

Just… expanded.

Because motherhood doesn’t erase who you were.

It adds layers.
It deepens the well.
It introduces you to a version of love your past self couldn’t have imagined…

…and also a version of yourself who needs more care than you expected.

Both are true.

At the same time.

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✷ The one I keep coming back to

There’s another piece in this month’s drop that feels different.

Quieter.
More grounding.
The one I didn’t want to rush past.
The one I needed to sit with.

you are not behind.
you are in a season.

Because flowers don’t bloom by doing everything.

They bloom because they are supported.

By the sun.
By the soil.
By the rain.

By an entire ecosystem working together.

And somewhere along the way,
we internalized the idea that we’re supposed to be the entire ecosystem.

No wonder we’re tired.

and maybe…

you don’t need to do more.

✷ A return to rhythm

The Rhythm You Were Made For (Poem #2)

This poem is a return.

To rhythm.
To cycles.
To a way of living that doesn’t demand blooming every single day.

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✷ The deep thoughts behind this month’s poems

I was talking about this with a close friend recently on Marco Polo after school drop-off. Because, obviously, nothing sparks existential conversations quite like the elementary pickup lane. We’ve both read The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and what stayed with us is how much of life is shaped by the agreements we accept as true.

The stories.
The identities.
The lenses we keep choosing, often without realizing.

If I’m sitting in
“I’m behind,”
“I’m not enough,”
“I’m just a boring mom,”

I’m not just thinking something.

I’m agreeing.

Agreeing this is the perspective I see my life through.
Agreeing this is the role I occupy.
Agreeing this is the truth about me.

And once we agree with a story, we start living inside it.

But what if the agreement changed?

What if the lens wasn’t smallness or exhaustion,
but that girl.

Because when we say
“I’m just a mom,”
“I’m nothing special,”
“I used to be creative,”

we’re not describing reality.

We’re describing the agreement we’ve accepted about ourselves.

Sometimes I strip the labels for a second, even the beautiful ones.

Not mom. Not friend. Not wife.
Not roles.
Not responsibilities.

Just: me.

Alive.
Creative.
Funny.
Desiring.
Becoming.

That girl was never missing.
She was underneath the agreement.

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✷ The new agreement I’m practicing

This is where the poems come in.

Because if agreements shape how we experience our lives, awareness gives us a choice.

We can keep agreeing with the old story.
Or we can make a new one.

And yes, people call this manifestation or alignment.
But at its most practical level, it often looks like this:

A thought appears:

“I’m not interesting.”
“I’m just a mom.”
“I’m not really creative anymore.”

And instead of agreeing, like we’ve practiced for years,
you pause.

And you go:

no.
I don’t agree with that.

I am creative.
I am alive.
I am fun.
I am sexy.
I am a good mom.
I am that girl.

The more you interrupt the old agreement
and speak the new one,
the more your brain wires around it.

You notice evidence.
You show up differently.
It becomes familiar.
Then normal.
Then true.

Not because you forced it,
but because you stopped arguing with yourself about who you are.

That’s the movement these poems follow:

soft → aware → embodied

Soft: you stop attacking yourself.
Aware: you see the old story clearly.
Embodied: you start walking as the new one.

So you can read them as poems.

Or you can read them as agreements.

By the end, my quiet hope is that something in you shifts toward:

I am soft.
I am aware.
I am embodied.
I am THAT girl.

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✷ Download + keep + share

I turned these into free printable downloads, because they felt meant to live in the world, not just on a screen.

Hang one near your mirror.
Slide one into your journal.
Mail one to your best friend.
Or send it to that woman you admire, the one who doesn’t even realize how much she already is.

Sometimes we recognize ourselves faster when someone else says it first.

Download Poems Here

✷ The poems (in order)

soft → aware → embodied

Take them slowly if you want.
Or read straight through and notice where your chest goes warm.

Either way, I’m really glad you’re here for this part.

Now, lets get to it!

✷ Poem #1: she’s been here the whole time (soft)

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✷ Poem #2:oh… it’s me (aware)

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✷ Poem # 3: walking around like it’s mine (embodied)

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✷ The agreement you leave with

And maybe that’s all this February was ever asking of us.

Not to become someone new.
Not to prove anything.
Not to finally get it right.

Just to notice.

The softness that was already there.
The awareness that was already opening.
The embodiment that was already beginning.

A quiet shift in agreement:

I am soft.
I am aware.
I am embodied.
I am THAT girl.

With mucho, mucho amor from the kitchen table,
♥️ Jazmin

✷Download poems HERE✷

✷ If you liked this, you’re very welcome inside Keeping It Fresco. We share poems, coloring pages, hosting guides, monthly themes, essays, and printable downloads for living creatively, and intentionally. I’d love to have you.

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✷ January’s Poems

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📜✨ Download the poem here: Magic, apparently Digital Download

✨Magic, apparently✨

they say magic
looks like fireworks
or grand gestures

but mine looks like
crumbs on the floor
chairs pulled too close
someone asking for seconds

magic is
everyone talking at once
and still understanding each other

magic is
the mess
that proves
we showed up

my kitchen table
doesn’t sparkle

it stays

and that’s the wonder

-Jazmin Montero

( written by a very tired mom writing from her kitchen table, not a AI robot)

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If you liked this poem, I’d love for you to check out my other pieces where I explore how our kitchen tables are magic.

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I had to tap all the way into my inner child for this one and let her take the lead. I didn’t want to write about the hard moments that can sometimes happen around the table, I wanted the laugh-until-you-snort kind. The silly, loud, ordinary nights that quietly turn into core memories before anyone realizes it.

The older I get, the more I’m convinced those are the moments that matter most.

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📜✨ Download the poem here: My Kitchen Table Is Magic Digital Download

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My Kitchen Table Is Magic

My kitchen table is magic,

(it told me so last night)

It turns plain old spaghetti

into a very fancy night

My kitchen table is magic,

it makes napkins disappear

and crumbs appear from thin air

It squeezes us in real tight

and steals my dad’s chair

My kitchen table is magic,

it holds board games and bad rules

and laughing way too loud

Someone tells a joke at the wrong time

and milk shoots out of their nose everywhere

My kitchen table is magic,

it knows all my best secrets

and hears jokes before they’re funny

It watches us laugh with full mouths

while mom says, “Chew first, then tell me!”

My kitchen table is magic,

sometimes it’s a spaceship

sometimes it’s a fort

sometimes it’s the best place

to sniff… then smile… then ask for dessert

My kitchen table is magic,

I’m sure of it, I swear

Because no matter where we go

we always end up there

-Jazmin Montero (from a mom sitting at her kitchen table, not AI)

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If you liked this poem, I’d love to invite you to read my other publications where I explore the everyday magic that lives at our kitchen tables.

Earlier this month, I gave myself a creative challenge: be the magazine editor of your life.✂️📄✨

I designed a cute cover, made a vision board, and fully leaned in, because what’s the point of a theme if you don’t actually do anything with it? You can see it all here if you want to peek behind the scenes.

In true ‘ a-la-Jazmin’ fashion, I didn’t want to just name the idea and move on. I wanted to follow through. Not perfectly, just honestly.

So I created two poems inspired by this theme and turned them into playful digital downloads.

They’re meant to be used: printed, taped into a journal, hung near your kitchen table, or tucked somewhere you’ll stumble upon them in the middle of real life.

If you download one, I’d love if you snapped a photo and shared it in the comments. I genuinely want to see where these end up living.

🖨️ Print & Play

These poems are yours to enjoy however you like.
Read them with your littles. Read them quietly to yourself.
Ask what kind of magic your kitchen table might hold.

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What to Expect This Month

This little “issue” comes out twice a week, just like a magazine column you look forward to.

Mondays will be reflective - poems, notes, and pieces to gently set the tone for the week.

Fridays will be playful and practical- ideas you can actually try at home.

Coming This Friday: A Vision Board Party Guide

This Friday, I’m sharing a hosting guide for a Vision Board Party, with three easy ways to make it your own:

• just you and your adult friends

• as a family, with your kiddos

• or with several families, parents and kids together

I’m especially excited about this one because I’m pulling from my archives (aka my Google Photos): real gatherings, real tables, real memories.

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Rip, Read, Repeat: Why This Month Is Meant to Be Used

This month’s poems are inspired by the magazines I loved most growing up, especially Family Fun. You know the pages I mean. The ones you dog-eared first.
The ones you carefully (or not so carefully, lets be honest) ripped out and taped to the fridge.

Those pages weren’t precious, they were practical, they were fun. They were meant to be used, scribbled on, shared, and lived with. That spirit guided this entire article.

So yes, there are poems here. And yes, there are printables.

And yes, you’re absolutely allowed to download them, print them, and actually use them at your kitchen table.

A Poem for the Kids (and the Kid in You)

The first poem, My Kitchen Table Is Magic, is written from a child’s point of view.

To write it, I had to quiet the adult voice in my head and really tap into my inner child, the one who notices the silly things, the loud laughter, the moments that feel ordinary at the time but somehow stick forever.

I wasn’t interested in writing about the hard stuff that can happen around a table. I wanted the laugh-until-you-snort moments. The silliness.
The core memories being made without anyone realizing it yet.

Because the truth is, most core memories aren’t big, grand events. They’re small moments, times when you felt connected, seen, and safe with your people.

A Poem for the Grown-Ups

The second poem, Magic, Apparently, is for adults, parents or not.

It’s about how easy it is to get caught up in the endless to-do lists of adulting and forget to notice what’s right in front of us. We convince ourselves that the grass is greener somewhere else… but what if we watered our own grass?

What if we let ourselves enjoy the simple things inside our own homes?

After all, we’re paying an arm and a leg for rent or a mortgage, we might as well enjoy it like an expensive stay. lol (And yes, I said lol. You can pry that out of my cold, dead millennial hands.)

Ready to Read (and Rip Out)

Okay, okay, enough talking about the poems.
Here they are ✨

Read them.
Print them.
Tape them somewhere you’ll actually see them.

Because the best magic isn’t hidden away, it’s right there at the table.

🌙 Try This Tonight

Ask your kids to finish this sentence:
“Our kitchen table is magic because…”
Write down their answers exactly as they say them, then try turning their words into a little poem.

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My Kitchen Table Is Magic

📜✨ Download the poem here: My Kitchen Table Is Magic Digital Download

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My kitchen table is magic,

(it told me so last night)

It turns plain old spaghetti

into a very fancy night

My kitchen table is magic,

it makes napkins disappear

and crumbs appear from thin air

It squeezes us in real tight

and steals my dad’s chair

My kitchen table is magic,

it holds board games and bad rules

and laughing way too loud

Someone tells a joke at the wrong time

and milk shoots out of their nose everywhere

My kitchen table is magic,

it knows all my best secrets

and hears jokes before they’re funny

It watches us laugh with full mouths

while mom says, “Chew first, then tell me!”

My kitchen table is magic,

sometimes it’s a spaceship

sometimes it’s a fort

sometimes it’s the best place

to sniff… then smile… then ask for dessert

My kitchen table is magic,

I’m sure of it, I swear

Because no matter where we go

we always end up there

Magic, apparently

📜✨ Download the poem here: Magic, apparently Digital Download

Share Keeping It Fresco

they say magic

looks like fireworks

or grand gestures

but mine looks like

crumbs on the floor

chairs pulled too close

someone asking for seconds

magic is

everyone talking at once

and still understanding each other

magic is

the mess

that proves

we showed up

my kitchen table

doesn’t sparkle

it stays

and that’s the wonder

Consider this your invitation to play along. Download the poems, hang them up, and tell me how your kitchen table feels magical lately.

Thanks for being here. Thanks for reading. Thanks for sitting at the table with me.

Come back Monday.
I’ll save you a seat.

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I’m mothering in layers.

A newborn on my chest, his breath like butterfly wings.

A six-year-old at my feet, asking me to watch him jump. Again. Again.

And an almost preteen rolling his eyes as he quietly reaches for my hand when no one’s looking.

I’m soft and sturdy and overstimulated.

I’m answering questions like

“Can I have a snack?”

“What is God?” and

“Why do babies cry so much?”

all before noon.

Some days I feel like three different moms— The nurturer. The teacher. The safe place for growing independence that sometimes comes with slammed doors.

And then there’s me.

Somewhere in the middle, not quite sure who I am outside of their needs.

But fiercely loving all of them in the ways they each require.

I rock the baby, while helping with math, while listening to the worries that come when childhood starts to fade.

And it’s all so much. And it’s all so sacred.

And I wouldn’t trade a second, but I would love a nap.

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Five More Minutes

They asked for five more minutes

and you said yes

even though the plan said no.

Time bent kindly.

Nothing broke.

Later, you’ll forget what the plan was.

But you’ll remember

the sound of their laughter

when no one was rushing them.

This is the kind of choice

that doesn’t show up on lists

but stays forever.

Jazmin Montero

Proof You’re Doing It Right

The tree leans a little.

There’s tape on the wrapping paper.

The mug in your hand is warm

a rare and holy thing.

The kids are loud, then quiet,

then loud again.

Someone needs a snack.

Someone doesn’t.

And somehow,

in the middle of all of it,

you breathe.

Not the “hold it together” kind

the real kind.

You didn’t ruin anything today.

You didn’t miss the moment.

You were the moment.

If love had a sound,

it would be this ordinary.

If magic had a shape,

it would look like you

sitting down.

-Jazmin Montero

She is not an aesthetic.

Not a trend.

Not a perfectly filtered morning or

a curated corner of a clean kitchen.



She is wild and whole,

a story still unfolding.

She is contradiction

soft hands, sharp mind,

big feelings, tired feet.



She doesn’t fit in reels or labels.

She is not made to be palatable.

She is made to be real.



To take up space in sweatpants or silk,

to laugh too loud at the wrong time,

to cry in the middle of breakfast,

to dance even when the living room is a mess.



She’s not performing.

She’s remembering.



How to be her.

How to be free.

How to show her kids that life isn’t

a highlight reel

it’s a deep, rich, messy becoming.



So let her be.

Let her wear too much color,

let her sing off key,

let her grow slower than the algorithm says she should.



Because the world doesn’t need more moms

trying to be small.



It needs women

who remember their glow.

Who claim their voice.

Who teach by living

loudly, fully, unapologetically.

Jazmin Montero

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