so you've got a heartache in your belly.
& as you casually told me
" it's about the size of a thumbnail
right now "
i looked down & realized
i needed to clip mine.
your eyes dimmed like theatre lights
when i closed the curtain
on your monologue
about motherhood
to tell you we couldn't keep it.
& i probably never loved you more
than those days where we would sit
in silence,
thinking about how empty we were about to become --
you literally,
& me….desperately.
& we went to that sterile building
with the bulletproof glass windows
& the chubby old woman,
using a blue blouse as a veil to cover the layers of
stress & years underneath.
she spoke to us through an echoing intercom
in a grave attempt to keep her distance
from our fingernail problem.
we got buzzed in & we waited &
we sat close but god you were so far away
& i reached out & grabbed your hand to pull you back in
& you looked over at me --
overpassed me --
& the ghost of a smile haunted your lips for a second….
they called your name, well
not your name…not the name i call you,
but the one your dad gave you,
& they told me i couldn't go back there with you
& i said i understood but i never will.
the waiting room filled with somber souls,
& we all pretended like it was just a normal doctor's office
but it was obvious who the better actors were
as some randomly burst into tears
like confetti poppers at a birthday party.
we all knew we were at a funeral but
they turned up the volume on the TV
like the quiche that Rachel Ray was baking
would make us forget the mistakes we were burying
& i remembered the picture you showed me
that looked like an x-ray of a jelly bean & said
" that's it.
that's what it looks like. "
& you stared at my face like you were trying to
memorize my expression in that exact moment
so you could dig it up whenever you needed to hate me again,
but then you came out of that door holding your belly
& i knew you wouldn't need to dig that up
because you would have no problem hating me
anymore.