Black and white our child
Plenty more to call our own
We won’t be alone
You've felt the love of our mother's womb - sleeping to the lullabies of our father.
Oh big brother, how cruel has fate been to deny me the pleasure of meeting you.
I exist because you didn't, therefore, I promise to live the life you couldn't.
My hypothalamus is haunting me.
An empty crib.
A bump that will never grow.
Love authenticity, you will always be a part of me.
A ghost in the hallways.
Your heart beat in my deepest quetiapine dreams.
A scan that will never show your sweetest echo.
Father, why would you make me bleed the love so pure?
I lost my voice from speaking you into existence.
He runs his fingers over my stomach my breath hitching, hoping yours is too.
My hypothalamus is haunting me.
Pitter-Patter, Pitter-Patter, the sound of little feet, though you are lost, I know you are not, My baby we'll meet again, my heart was broken for you, I'm sulking the child I'll never meet, pitter-patter, pitter-patter the sound of an angels feet, pitter-Patter pitter-patter, my Baby one day ill meet.
GASP OF AIR
Death claims all the Victory
In this life given to me.
It owns the very parts of Me
Which mingled with One’s chemistry
To build a brand new entity,
Just to have him ripped from me.
Who was the enemy?
My own womb, specifically
Betrayed us all, ejecting
This tiny piece of Humanity.
Scrap to you? Not to me.
I still ache longingly
To nurse and cradle this piece to me.
Twenty years and constant suffering,
More Death than Life, if you ask me,
Since my three children’s lives
Were deemed by Someone “Not to Be,”
And Mother never made of me.
What rules for such a Tragedy?
No One knew, apparently.
All Baby Bumps avoided me,
As if my “inability To carry”
An unspeakable disease,
Passed contagiously.
Alone, I bear their Memories;
Always My Responsibility.
Now I’ve become too fatigued
To honor them effectively;
They only Live in Memory.
I’m not too proud to beg your sympathy.
I’ll even make this plea upon my knees:
Would you be willing,
Momentarily,
To hold MY children in YOUR hearts
So I can breathe?
Raindrops rolling down windows
Like tears streaming down cheeks
Scattered showers above rolling meadows
From tired eyes pains weeps
Through fields of wildflowers
The sun peers, peeking through clouds of gray
I could walk hand in hand for hours
My only wish being that you’d have stayed
Torn away like a ripped page
Through sands of time agony winds
Laid to rest in an early grave
A broken heart has left me blind
Thunder awakens the slumbering sorrow
That surrounds my soul
My only wish that I’d have had more time to borrow
To dig myself out of this hole
YÉMIÍTÀN
If you would stay do stay
Please tease me no longer
My body, no more can bear
But my heart, yet still craves
My womb you make hollow
My hopes many times dashed
How can you be so heartless
With visits that never last
Yémiítàn, my precious child
This foolery is so much pain
Desist your antics my child
A mother can no longer bear
You prey on my deep desire
You tease with your to and fro
Why mock me in my despair
Àbíkú omo, òdájú ènìyàn
I know you, you little trictster
I can sense your deep longings
Too many a time have visited
To visit me yet never stay
So with cowries will I bind you
And with red dust to earth tie you
With deep marks will I brand you
And ensure you never again leave.
My God, My God,
I feel broken and bruised.
I'm trying to understand
but my emotions are confused.
I have so many questions
that all start with why?
Why did I miscarry?
Why did the baby die?
My God, My God,
I know that you are good.
I believe you have a plan,
I just wish I understood.
How could I lose a baby?
When you're the creator of life?
You could of saved my pregnancy
instead of it ending with a knife.
My God, My God,
I feel broken and bruised.
I'm trying to understand
Can I at least have a clue?
Morbidly ironic
Profoundly apologetic
To the body that has carried me
Despite the rigorous decrees
I issued over you
Knowing the stress and restrictions followed were of my own volition
Here I now kneel, begging the same body I so begrudgingly belittled and bullied
The body that I starved and overworked
The body I intentionally cut and bruise and burn
The body with the walking death sentence
Now pleading for this same body to produce life
Have I asked too much
Pushed the boundry of her capabilities
Exceeded the capacity in her efforts of saving me
Why did I not value you
Take care of you
Love you like I should've
I now know of your limitations
sixth of six children my parents conceived I was second to survive
written 26 Aug 2020
------------------
Four little empty chairs
Four pairs of little hands
Around our table
In my imagination
Little daughters and sons
That could not quite come
In their failed gestation
Eight exotic eyes in pairs
Never to be woman or man
Shining bright like in fables
Hold their father's rapture
As if they'd been born
And not instead torn
By man or nature's fracture
Tragedies we share
Our young family plan
Was made so unstable
We held onto each other
We never lost heart
We did not fall apart
In our arms we were covered
Our other babies were spared
And were held in my hand
Those four little ones able
But someday I will see
Eight curly tow heads
When my children are led
And embraced in eternity
Today we should have met you
We should have held you close
But the angels all had other plans
They needed you the most
I hope you know we love you
We always will, for evermore
The pain will never go away
But with time, will be less raw
We know you aren’t alone there
You have family all around
By the eternal blood line
To our family your are bound
So play and sleep, protected
By your angel family who love you too
Until we meet again, sweet Elena
Your love will always shine through
Moon,
Full moon,
Full moon, monthly.
Moon, woman,
Full moon, woman,
Full moon, woman, monthly.
Moon,
woman,
Full moon, full woman.
Round moon,
Round woman.
moon in woman,
woman in bed.
Eyeless moon laying in bed,
bright,
so bright,
unmoving,
as her fingers say goodbye.
For Brenda Chiri’s Picture Prompt contest
3/11/2020
Doomed from the womb
A hole in my heart
A loss not yet gained
Love with a life not born
A death without a birth
How much is a life worth?
Hope for a child that never was
May I ask you something, mother;
why don't I have a brother or sister?
Mother, did I make you sad?
Your eyes are tearfully ironclad,
refusing to see my curious face
like black polyester covering lace.
“I can't have children anymore,” you say,
but mother, when did you make lying child's play?
Dad said something similar, too,
just diverted answers that weren't true;
will your replies ever change
as I grow up, quiet and strange?
Dad, are you going to say it now,
while I’m blaring my music banshee-loud
like hardened, rusty loneliness
crying out to thunder clouds?
“If so, then tell me why,”
I wish as you heave a laden sigh.
“You were supposed to have two older siblings,
but they never,” you utter,
agonized like scorched kindling burned by grief.
Your unspoken words, heard church bell clear:
You meant a miscarriage, right?
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