This is the third October.
I still get depressed, eyes well with tears
that fall when no one is looking, still drink
until I forget I’m crying, stumble to my bed
alone and hope I can sleep peacefully. I wake up, flinch
at my reflection in the mirror, caress my still
flat stomach that hasn’t been filled since, people
will ask “how are you?” And I think still empty, the
numbers still haven’t managed to fade, they ****
the life out of a room, out of my womb, if you look
close enough you can still see that Saturday on my face
and where I couldn’t get all of the blood up from. I estimated
that my due date would’ve been October 13th. Only 5% of
women actually give birth on the day they are expected to. What
a tragedy that we’ll never get to know.

3 or 5 or 3-5% of rapes result in pregnancy.
I became one of the 32,000 annual **** related pregnancies
in January 2016. I wouldn’t be surprised if those numbers were
higher, I debate whether or not I should be grateful that I have
no real recollection of how I became a part of that statistic, this body still
keeps secrets from me, this body is part crime scene but no evidence remains,
part cemetery with an unmarked grave that I always bring my grief to, that I always
bring my condolences and my deepest and sincerest apologies to, there’s a part of
this body still hollow, buried six feet deep, in purgatory, still damaged, still strapped
to those stirrups, eyes staring out at the strawberry colored walls, invaded for the
second time in two months, ruined by prying hands, still drunkenly murmuring no
until the room collapses pitch black and I remember why I’ve always hated the dark
and why I never wanted to be alone with him again, this body is still trying to cling onto
what your existence would’ve looked like. What a tragedy that we’ll never get to know.

I deserved a better conception story, wish I had chosen a different
way this concluded or continued, we deserved to quell my doubts and fears
about whether or not I would be and have everything that I do now
that I didn’t back then regardless, just with you here, what a tragedy that
we’ll never get to know. You deserved the most of all, to have had life
breathe into your lungs, your tiny precious body placed on my skin, a name,
I hoped that you would’ve been a boy that I would’ve named Phoenix. You
was conceived on the darkest day of my life, you arose in my body for the first time
mid February in the form of vicious nausea and 7 AM gas station hotdogs,
and a severe dislike for pizza, you was making your presence known, a presence
that I have been dying to feel ever since. We deserved more days with each other,
a great day with balloons, presents, and cake, I would turn to you smiling and
say I love you more than anything in this world no matter how you got here,
happy birthday baby, now blow out your three candles.