Shhhhhh.
I do not want to hear the cars rushing by, or the hum of the dishwasher, or life taking place, in it’s very fallible, flawed way.
I am already too aware of the failings of humanity. It existed within my body for three weeks. It lay dead, within me, for three weeks. Two of which, I walked around unknowingly. (Didn’t I know my body by now? Wouldn’t I have been able to tell? Am I that bad of a mother?)
Shhhhhhh.
I want to stand next to the ocean with the waves crashing in. I want to hold my pretend baby in my arms for at least once. Yellow baby roses are in my arms instead, but they’ll do. They’re the closest thing I’ll have to holding my baby.
(Scene: a doctor’s office. A thirty-something woman sits on the table with tears running down her face. An older thirty-something sits with her.)
Thirty-something: I don’t want to wait five days to have the procedure. I don’t want to pass the baby at home, with my history.
Older thirty-something: Are you aware that it wouldn’t be a baby?)
Shhhhhhhhhh.
I am aware.
I’ve always been aware.
I have always been able to go there. To that dark place. With you. With all of you. I have listened to you gripe, and showed up for you time and time again. And now I am hyper aware you cannot do the same for me. I am hyper aware of your ginger emails, your bad jokes, your avoidance of pain because it’s too much for you. I am hyper aware that even saying this drives you further from me. I am hyper aware of your shortcomings, your defects that make you human. I am disgusted. Better to be disgusted by you than the blood and pain that won’t stop.
I know. That was disgusting.
Now do you know how it feels?
Shhhhhhhh.
It won’t be this way forever.
I will start thinking like a grounded, science-minded educated woman again. I will be your strong girl. I will not feel like living is akin to peeling the first layer of your skin off constantly. The chest pain will cease, and the moments that make life unbearable will lose their strength. I will stop contemplating starving myself or throwing myself into exercise to drown you out.
(Why not betray the body when the body has betrayed you? Why not use whatever the fuck I want to feel better? I’ve seen way too much loss, too many last breaths, the smell of death. Someone dying while they’re still alive. So fuck you, and your “you can recover fully!” bullshit. This shit comes around, like an old shady friend, following you up that spiral staircase and re-emerging when you’re most vulnerable.)
Shhhhhhhh.
Go to sleep, baby -
maybe you’ll get to be free now
