when he told me
he was taking back the words
‘i love you’
that he said back to me however many moons ago
my womb withered alongside
its comrade of my heart.

it was rushed: he hadn’t meant it yet.
he wanted to, hadn’t grown to,
couldn’t lie - forced a premature delivery unto me;
the crowning burned as it ripped
flesh from muscle from skin from flesh.
it pained him to swallow my travail.

i called him,
asked him if we could meet that night.

those unwelcome contractions curled my spine
as i sat placid in the hard bottomed seat of the train
mostly empty - this was the dark of juvenile midnight.
unboarding, i carried my labour to him up the shallow hill
rising to where he lived. he came down to meet me.

we sat on the biting metal platforms
(supported by their metal pole husbands,
raising their plastic roof offspring)
dotted with circular holes
in the sour sarcasm of a child’s playground;
i called him out here asking him
to let me cry with him, in lieu of over.

the epidural he administered to me
bit me as the needle pierced my giving skin.
the stinging truth: how he lied to please me,
caught up in the moment without thinking.
i asked him if he ever felt love for the girls before me.
he told me no. not like that.

the painkiller worked fast in its cruel irony.
how strange that his directness: impregnated me and
forced midwifeless accouchement down my throat.
and how strange still that it be that very same truthfulness
to comfort and soothe away those selfsame pains.
hark! pay attention to the devil in the details—
i found solace and relief in his candour.

he pampered me with a sprinkling of kisses
dotted below my brow, dabbing away
softly at my tears. my breathing was heavy,
encumbered, but i was no longer pained.

this was the first time he spoke to me for real.
what it all was that we said, i can’t say:
those words are to me precious as gold to a goblin;
they belong to us - those memories are ours. i bit down on
my hand to distract myself - i knew i had to push hard
through the ring of fire. i tore down my middle.
hell - dante’s dreams were my reality.

know this. listen and know the tumultuous labour
- how it was through loving him that i had to
wake through my own childbearing cries -
i got through. but know this. listen and know that it
was only through loving him that the child was safely
born unto me.

this child was for us our honesty.