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Cori MacNaughton Jun 2015
Being childless
has its benefits
especially while channeling Peter Pan
This is the 14th of fifteen 10-word poems I wrote this morning, 23 June 2015.  I posted them here in the order in which I wrote them.
Jazleigh Walker Apr 2013
I can see the vivid flashbacks from past times
The person I was meant to be left somewhere behind
The worldly winds of heartbreak and defeat have tossed me here
In this place I can't escape because of fear
If I could kick my heels thrice and maybe rewind
Go back past the hurt to a more simple happy time
Yet the present is what I have and the future neither promised nor imagined
The past just a long ago beauty like the retired queens of pageants
Still I pray everyday that this mindset is just a phase
Counting on recapturing that childlike spirit from the hands of yesterday
Having never sought fulfilment
in the pursuit of being mother
my body is my temple
for use of no-one other
than my own indulged desires
of aesthetics, pleasure, fun,
so, yes, I fret the stretch marks,
the odd pimple on my ***.

I obsess, in terms of thread veins,
for they make me feel unpretty,
so vain, if that doth make me,
I accept in all its gritty,
ugly notions – for us gals are meant to be
vessels of life-giving, all procreation’ry.

“Oh! I know my body’s purpose”!
the new mother’s apt to cry.
I shall not regret my choices
biologics tick… ticking by.
Does that mean our sad mechanics
are bereft of serving purpose?
It is no hard done-by chore,
our childlessness not cursed us.

When I stand, unclothed and natural
my body has a story
I don’t need the marks of childbirth
to feel a sense of glory.
All this talk of ‘battle scars’
babies sure sound painful,
but, forgive me, all you mothers
should I dare to sound disdainful.

It’s just I feel no less a woman
for not having given birth,
and there is no singular purpose
for this body on this earth.
Like living in a desert
enduring shifting sands,
the bits I’ve never really liked
I cover up with clothes and hands.

I’ve no need to ‘love my body’, thanks
I’m just fine with friendly banter.
Angles, poise and lighting
three small words – a mighty mantra.
Self-love is overrated
when costume is the thing,
and my body wears it well, you see,
and the pleasure that it brings
is proof enough that any scars
may be healed to nothing
without the need for motherhood
and its pushy, panting, puffing.

So curse my sour dismissives!
I’m all said and done,
the female form has every purpose
babies ain’t the only one.
Dada Olowo Eyo Feb 2013
When my soul folds up,
And the world crowds me in,
Wondering where my spirit's been,
I don't give up;

Friends and family desert me,
The job no longer feeds me,
Afraid for the coming dawn,
I don't give up;

Don't let me go,
Oh, my Lord,
Don't let me go,
Dear Lord, I cling to you;

Storms threaten my industry,
Tongues wag at my childlessness,
The pressures press me in on all sides,
I don't give up;

Don't let me go,
Oh, my Lord,
Don't let me go,
Dear Lord, I cling to you;

I don't give up
'Cos I know my tomorrow's bright,
I don't give up
'Cos I believe help's in sight,
I don't give up
'Cos I see the owner of my soul coming to my fight.

Don't let me go,
Oh, my Lord,
Don't let me go,
Dear Lord, I cling to you.
A song
Dear Ethel Cain

I’m in the afterhood of childlessness. No one is dancing. I say things above my dying body that sound final. A cigarette is a flashlight with a toothache. Look for whiskey’s underwater church.

— The End —