I keep very busy,
I work through and through,
I try not to pause
because when I do
I can't help but think of you.
I go out on dates,
I go out with friends,
I hate when the day ends,
Because when it does,
I can't help but miss us.

When I lay in this bed,
A thousand miles away,
Full of translucent regrets
that keep falling down my face,
I admit I miss my baby
that I never got to name.
And I miss the love I lost
Ever since you went away.
Dearest friend I hope you're doing fine,
I Just wanted to tell you
That I miss you tonight.

The time flies on by,
I try not to wonder why,
You left me all alone,
Because when I do,
I can't help but think of you.

I bury our baby
Deep within my heart.
I hate that memory,
And how it tears me apart.
Because when it does,
I can't help but miss us.

When I laid in that bed,
A thousand miles away,
Surrounded by strangers,
Without a familiar face.
I admit I miss my baby
that I never got to name.
And I miss the love I lost
Ever since you went away.
Dearest friend I hope you're doing fine,
I Just wanted to tell you
That you're still on my mind.

It was on a Friday they told me you were dead.

And Daddy was away
And didn't know to come right away
And my friend gave me lilies
Because what was there to say?

For a week I carried you
Still, heavy, silent
A breathing tomb.

I birthed you on Good Friday morning
Held you in the hollow of my hand
Tiny, formed, delicate, alabaster -

David.

My baby
Who lived in my hope
But died in my body
Who lived in my heart
But never in my arms

They told us we could bury you
So we did
In our own soil
Paper shroud, shoebox coffin
Mommy's letter in a bottle.

I planted a lilac to remember you by.

Time passed
We moved away
I had to leave you and the letter and the lilac behind.

Still I am moving away
Leaving you and the letter and the lilac behind.

Your death came
unveiled by an omen
on the wings of an owl
I knew you would
not survive outside of me
too many traumas
too much pain has a
way of devouring
tiny little breaths
if you are not ready to live
the hurt will just
eat
you
up

Walking to the station
Like a zombie lost in grief,
I reflect on what I lost
In the bathroom just last week.

I stare down at the ground,
Not watching where I walk
And bump into a man;
The kind who likes to talk.

'Cheer up love' he says,
As my anger slowly grows,
'It can't be all that bad' -
I feel my heart implode.

I could've walked on by
And left him to his day,
But I have a way with words
And I had a lot to say:

"Please don't call me 'love'
Or tell me to 'cheer up',
As if your empty words
Could ever be enough.
I'm sorry if my frowning
Is messing with your mood,
But it really is 'that bad'
And you don't have a clue.
The burden that I carry
Is really ******* bleak.
So no I won't 'cheer up' -
My baby died last week."

He stares at me in silence
And hangs his head in shame.
Now he's a zombie just like me
We go our separate ways.

I turned ten two days ago.
You were born today,
Yet you will never draw your first breath.

Your lips,
Inherited the reddest hue of cardinal feathers.
Your skin,
Pale and soft like fresh Pennsylvania snow.

I never knew what your eyes looked like,
They never opened.
Infinite iris colors
That will never be discovered.

When I held you in my arms,
The guiding hand of God drifted away.
I gave the coldest of shoulders I suppose,
Dust drifting in the air conditioned delivery room.

I looked outside the hospital window.
The dead leaves fluttered in the bitter wind,
Time stood still that day,
For me, just a little kid.

What I would have done,
For you.

A quiet knocking on the door,
A quiet rapping through the floor
A quiet voice sweet and soft
Growing louder, hard to ignore.

I hide under the sheets,
Terror fleeting,
Numb and unprepared,
Even as I know I must,
I twist and turn and-
I can’t hold back
My life will change

I tried to close the door,
To stifle that tapping under that floor-
I guarded my heart
But walls and sheets are closing fast
None of this safety can last

I know I must turn
So many moments pushing through
My entire future, fading past
I know what I must do,
I must go with you.

I know what we will be
I will change for you
I cannot be free
It will never again just be me
I would do anything to protect you
Change my life to be with you

But as I reach-
As I tell you what I will do
What this love is that I feel for you

Suddenly jaded, crushed and worn
Bearing under that deep, rank well of guilt
You are pulled away
Screaming and tearing

A darkening wave of blood- and so many tears
Every single one of my worst fears
Sad, sick and twisted turn of fate
I wasn’t ready for you
And now I’m much, much too late.

They tell me I couldn’t have stopped it,
I couldn’t have protected you.
“I need to feel in order to heal”
But there is no knocking on the door,
No quiet rapping through the floor.
Nothing…. no quiet voice,
                      No one is asking anymore.

My mommy said I shouldn’t eat the watermelon seeds, that it would hurt if they made a home of my tummy. She’s a little loopy, my mama, and I don’t believe her sometimes, so I ate the seed and it tasted really boring. I swallowed the seed whole and nothing happened, mama.

My mom told me not to eat the watermelon seeds, that, in a few weeks, a small black tear drop floating in my body would hurt once it found a home in my belly. If it claimed my gut, it would throw out the food I tried to eat, greedy of the space, growing and swelling inside me until the button of my worn jeans would no longer snapped shut. She’s a little dramatic, my mom. I ignored fruit-flies swarming the chewed rind left on the counter, its sickly sweet scent swallowing the space of my small apartment.

My mother warned me never to ingest the seeds of a watermelon, that this little black tear drop once wedged into the sweet sponge of the fruit would one day decide the house it made of my torso was no longer its home. It tore its way from my body, strangled the sides of my diaphragm, round after round of reverberating contractions bent me over until the sweet clear liquid flowed from me. Then came the melon, my melon, that once found a home in my body – falling from me in clumps of sickly sweet spongey mush through shaking fingers into an unsuspecting porcelain bowl.
                             She was right, it did hurt.

I reached out and held your hand.
"Mom...I'm pregnant"
I felt your grip loosen,
and I was afraid to meet your eyes,
wide with shock, with tears glistened.

You stood across from me,
arms folded, ready for my big news.
"Dad...I'm pregnant"
Your gaze fell and you wouldn't speak.
We both knew it was too soon.

"Congratulations, Miss McNabb.
You're pregnant!"
I know it's true and yet it seems so unreal.
Baby Lost...
...And Baby Reborn.
I don't know how to feel.
Excited of course,
the obvious choice.
But also scared, and maybe paranoid.
My little Oliver Sparrow never made it
out of the womb-
taken too soon.
I tried to forget the pain
but pain is much too real to be waived.

There is a baby inside of me.
I have seen it on the black and white screen.
I couldn't help the laughter that bubbled,
when I saw its little hiccups and kicks,
the way it seemed to dance inside.
I believe in my baby, I can't resist.
My baby is strong, that much I know,
just from seeing its dance-
almost like a restlessness to be free.
My baby is loved-
more loved than I could ever hope to be,
and yet I wish I had more, more, more love to give.

My baby is here, and real,
and so is my desire to be the best mommy.

Baby Lost...
...And Baby Reborn