Seven Weeks and Six Days
Week six.
There is a natural disaster occurring, tsunamis of
morning queasiness Monday through Friday, Tuesday's
lunch on my favorite pants, denial dances on the weekends.
It was Sunday. One word, two syllables causes a tornado
of emotions, hurricanes of tears hit my hands and pours to
the floor, my heart sinks and drowns. How many casualties will there be?
Fact:
I account for thirteen percent of the population but
thirty-seven percent of all abortions.
Saturday.
With my hoodie sheltering my identity, I enter the building.
Protestors, shouting this is murder, hand me pamphlets that I ball up and
throw away, sign my name and wait. Blood samples and pee tests.
Ultrasound pictures, nurses ask do I want to be sleep or awake?
Counselor asks how will I feel on Sunday? Floods of tears drench
my shirt, uncertainty and guilt gets caught in my throat. It’s time.
Fact: I am five times more likely to get an abortion than white women.
I remain stoic.
But in the inside, I tremble like a newborn antelope fearing the new world.
I weep like a lioness losing her cub. The nurses strap my legs to the paddles.
My heart beats and I swore if you looked closely, you could see it protruding
out my chest, my mind races and I swore I saw galaxies and landed on Saturn,
I stare out at the strawberry colored walls and I remembered how far along
the nurse said I was. I couldn't muster the nerve to look at the ultrasound screen.
Fact: Sixty-nine percent of pregnancies of black women are unintended compared
to fifty percent of hispanic women and forty percent of white women.
Seven weeks and six days.
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