It keeps happening
Just when I least expect it
And I'm always shocked, surprised somehow,
At how it feels when I see the swelling skin
Hear another exclamation of another new life
I've waited so long
Spent so many years of my life
Wondering what it feels like
Staring at my silhouette in the mirror, trying to imagine it encompassing a tiny life
Wishing praying wanting
Pretending to be patient with the choice I've made
Hoping against hope
Hoping against hope
While all around me
Mothers become mothers without trying
Fathers react in shock or trauma or by leaving
Glad families grow and add and pile on yet another baby
And inside me
My womb and heart and soul
Nothing
Spring comes so often around me
New life
Over and over and over
While I
Younger
Weaker
Hungrier
Shrivel and ice over
And die and die and die--
I am so tired of blood--
Winter, each season of my life ends up being winter, and I am so tired
Of choosing death
Look
Babies don't fix problems
And I know it
But it is exhausting to live with death as my most dependable constant
And maybe hope would be easier to grasp
If I could just hold it in my arms
But no
Not now
I've heard the words over and over and over
Said them myself so much that they choke me to gagging
Made the choice not to act on my burning want
Made the choice not to act on my burning want
And all I can do
All I can say
Oh please oh please, if there is any other way . . .
but You have the final say
So let my tears fall like rain
I won't give up hope
That spring still exists, somewhere
That maybe, this chilly winter rain that falls from my eyes my heart my soul
Is watering ground I can't see yet
That maybe spring won't come in the shape of a small person with his eyes and my nose and twenty tiny perfect phalanges
But maybe
Just maybe
There's a shape I can't quite imagine
A comfort I can't even begin to feel
A hope that hides just below the horizon
And maybe
Someday
When the sun rises
Instead of blood and tears and death
I'll finally find, in the places that just looked dead,
Spring flowers
