God made each person beautiful in their way.
Please let them be something one day.
Women, you destroy the life of someone to be.
You just took away somebody's destiny.
To pregnancy, don't think it's just a maybe.
Women, why can't you think about your baby?
Why abortion should you do?
What if your mother did that to you?
Beautiful people begin as cells.
They may not be pretty at first but oh well.
They grow to be pretty, clever, and smart.
Why can't people just have a heart?
Abortion is ******, and you should know that.
I don't care if you don't want to get fat.
Babies should be cherished and loved.
Don't you want that from God above?

LIGHT, dreary light, on a plaza, surrounded by
unexpectedly hopeless hope. And you, stubborn man.

This plaza is a placenta. And we are
the fetus that can never get out of
there. The maturity of pregnancy, and we
are not ever dare to actually be born.

If our mother dies, dry the umbilical cord.

a child's first exposure to water:
18 months, curious and shivering,
he runs on brown wet sand
under the wide cloudy sky
to the blue gray lake up to his knees, lapping against his legs.
He feels the mud oozing between his toes.
Light glimmers on the waves,
and splashing, he tries to catch it.
Hands in the wind-tossed water, he grins.
When the wind roars and pushes him back,
his hair stands on end.
he stumbles
and turns and sees his mother,
blonde like him,
her hair wrapped up in a knot, windswept
dressed in white
her belly round and soft and full
like the moon--
there like she always is,
waiting and watching with care
even when he can't see her.
Like the tide coming in,
he goes to her.

Brother, you told me once you were scared
to have a daughter.

You knew this when you baby-sat
a baby girl with your wife,

and you, a former American Army infantryman

melted and was brought down in a way

that the guns you faced in Afghanistan never could.

She’ll be my princess, I remember you saying.

A little girl all dressed in pink,
whatever she’ll ask for, you'll give it.

You were relieved when the first child

you and your wife had was

a baby boy, but to be honest,

you melt all the same,
even 9 months later.

But I’ve always wanted to ask,
“Why are you afraid to have a daughter?”

You know the stories how our mother gave birth for the first time

and how she labored in the car
when she drove herself to the hospital.

And how your pregnant wife came home on her lunches from work

and would cry on the floor because her back hurt so bad,

But she still sat up and went back to work--

the same way our older sister cried on her first day back

from maternity leave and parted with her baby boy for the first time,

the same way Mom went back to work when you and Dad deployed.

What you know of women is that we’re strong,

that we dry our tears and continue on with the world.

Really what we do is keep the world spinning
with the force of how much we love.

So anything, you give your daughter
will be returned in multitudes.

You were taught the same way to love that I was--

instinctively and unconditionally and unrelentingly.

And maybe you’re afraid that your daughter

won’t be able to walk home alone at night

or that no one will listen to her,

And you know this is a poem from your younger sister.

So savor that I’m saying you’re not wrong,
because I don't know when that will happen again.

Your daughter may have to work harder to be heard

and to keep herself safe than any son you have.

But know no matter, how strong she is or how hard she works

that **** still happens

and it won’t be her fault.

and you know because you have two sisters

and you’ve heard our stories.

Statistics say that 1 in 3 women experience ****** or physical violence.

We have one President, who bragged on a Hollywood Access bus

about grabbing women by the *****  

because they let him

and because no one stopped him.

Brother, be scared of the men who would hurt your daughter,

but brother, don’t be scared to have a daughter,

Because she will love you the same way
your wife, your mother,

and your sisters have loved,

that our bodies may break and tear in the doing
but we will choose to do it all over again.

Their bed is a battlefield:
Sheets drenched with sweat,
The smell of renewed hope,
Pulses slowing.

Wide eyes pierce the ceiling,
Bright with what might be -
The thought of something forming
Deep within.

Hope fades at the lamp click.
Blackened silence fills the room
But neither one can sleep,
Not right now.

Lost in Google late at night.
The glow of false hope forums -
Stupid acronyms and
Fake concern.

****-soaked sticks in bathroom bins;
The clang of disappointment
Ringing through the house.
This stops soon.

The artist paints yellow, pink, and red
roses on her canvas,
glints of blue at the edges
dripping and spilling.
Something for spring, she says.
She gently smiles,
her hand rubbing
the swelling curve
of her belly,
just a black shirt and ragged blue jeans
covering another kind of canvas.
Underneath
something else entirely
waits to bloom.