Postpartum blues

 

Now that I’ve held my own son in my arms, listened to his sweet sleeping breaths, seen the tears run down his frantic face, I can’t get this sadness, mingled with joy, out of my mind.

Sadness for the silver-tongued irony of evil. Sadness for the babies so like my son, so innocent and pathetic, that have been and will continue to be treated wastefully by those who should have recognized their value.

This is not my story. It’s the untold tragedy that takes place, re-cast and re-staged, every day in our broken world.

Mother and Son

He sleeps amidst marvels.

This is life in its purest iteration,
to touch the thrumming soul of another,
to imbibe her essence
and string it alongside his own,
every vibration new and wondrous
to unopened eyes.

She is the first sound he hears,
if he hears at all.
Her beating heart, her blood
the soundtrack of his existence.
Her voice, the song he knows best.

For him, there is no choice to be made.
He has everything he needs.
He will be reluctant to leave the comfort
of her spirit-cocoon. Reluctant,
even at the prospect of meeting her
face to face,
like a fairy tale prince
following a melody through the forest.
The sound is a certainty to him,
a blessed swaddle.
He loves it with naked innocence.

She
may not be so lucky,
Disillusioned as she is
by the lovely lies she’s been told.
She may lie restless
entombed by walls cold and stifling.

Fear may take the form of words in the darkness.
I want an abortion.

He
is naive of meanings, of fear.
Cynicsm can’t reach him there.

All he hears
as her mouth shapes the idea
is not the sentence of death
but the sound most sweet to him in the world.