Still
A pregnant pause
Breath bated at thirteen
No line, check again, no line, check again, no line
And breathe
Just breathe through your nose it’s all fine
And seethe
***** rising, eyes streaming, toilet splatter splash back
Lack of self-worth self-respect at the end of a fist smack
My mouth bled from the depths of my womanhood
Then stopped.

And I was only thirteen
And then the doctor tells me I'm only sixteen
Then only eighteen, twenty one, twenty five, twenty eight
And the weight of dismissal in the onlys
Is the heaviness of my shameful heart.

Still
A pregnant pause
Breath – shallow, quickens
as the doctor, in his superior tongue tells me I have a shot in hell
Hell – that’s what this is
A pit of horrors where a man who spread me wide, looked inside and saw nothing
Dried his hands, and sent me on my way
to drown in a sea of bumps and gurgling infants to see a man who tells me
fertility treatments have improved.

Still
A pregnant pause
Swallowing Clomid to the tune of the patter of stomach cramps
And the dampening of hot flashes searing through my empty *******.
Then came two laparoscopies - and a new suction of hope from my heart
Teeth bared to the penetrating needle of the appropriately named Pregnyl
Poured into my body till I ache and bloat.
Nothing positive to note so he takes the Follistim and pushes it in
Till the weight of reality anchors in to my hips and spreads
Taking hold of my lungs, rasping my breath
And I call time.

Still
A pregnant pause
tears abruptly erupt whilst singing nursery rhymes to my nephew
I hand him to my mother and pour out the truth.
She says nothing.
She then tells me she has a friend whose niece’s best friend was infertile
And then one day BAM pregnant.
And there was no discussion only false hope.
As friend after friend tells me of some distant hopeless case that came good.
And my (insert obscure relation here) couldn’t have children but then
BAM a boy
BAM a girl
BAM twins
BAM triplets
BAM a ******* maternity ward filled with unlikely sprogs.
And still

A pregnant pause
A crushing aching longing that beats in rhythm with my heart
A longing that cannot be told as it is, for what it is
Because what it is, is what it is.