They Ask Me Why I Did It

The burden of holding it in my arms weighed me down to nothing. I had not felt like myself for months, and no one noticed my morning breath at midnight or my late-night schnapps scented coffee. My hatred formed from the voracity it had to suck on life itself. The way its eyes always locked on to the deep creases of my misery reminding me of the failure I had become. My youth vanished overnight, like the voices of those who never cried. (I wasn’t lucky enough for that.) Still I held it in my arms, trembling, fighting coherency. To say I tried is not enough, but the constant cry for more, the unsatisfaction from the satisfaction I didn’t provide. I had not felt like myself for months, and no one notice. Since the beginning, I felt pain in the pit of my belly like worms eating the flesh on my livelihood. I felt the jab in my sides, and the violent fits of rage. Then came the constant clawing from the inside. I still have the scars to remind me it was self-defense. Against my chest, I squeeze it hard, a bitter lemon not yet ripe, with so little juice to give. A peace unfurled inside of me As its final breath escaped like plumes of smoke from the mouth of my dying son.