Submit your work, meet writers and drop the ads. Become a member
I have heard it said that women glow
But I never knew it to be so
Until I met you
Then I knew it was true
With your belly round
The glow profound
And with a kick or two
Our little flower grew
These months I'm counting down
Your glow bright as a Queen's crown
And it humbles me
This beauty I see
Let joy and love abound
Emma Brigham Aug 2018
To my little one who pushes me from the inside out:
because of you
my eyes see new colors.  
Funny how
there are perhaps as many nuances of love
as there are shades of green in a summer forest
and there is only the word “love.”
Sadness too.  
Like the sadness of giving up
something you didn’t know you wanted.  
That was you.
Was you.
You occupy me.  
Within and without.  
My feet and my heart ache.
I watch how people's’ eyes are drawn to my stomach.  
Celebrating roundness
where there was once flatness
and that was once celebrated
is also a funny thing.  
I do want to laugh and it is easy to.  
Crying is also easy.  
Sometimes they are indistinguishable  
or
one becomes the other.  
Becoming.  
If that is what I am doing
how is it different
from what I have been doing my whole life?
Stéphanie Aug 2018
I feel jailed in my own body
socially forced to conceive
emotionally sick
hurt within

Scared to transmit pain
in this age of depression
reminding my ancestors' culpability;
will I also hurt my descendant?

Struggling to finish a phd
in this age of precarity
thinking it might push me;
Or, will I fail it all?
Emma Brigham Jul 2018
My baby moves in jumps and flutters inside me,
like the barn swallows that make nests
of dirt and twigs outside the restaurant.
Yesterday they disappeared
and I learned that a maintenance man came and hosed them down.  
Tragic, he said.
But necessary.  
Too much bird ****.  
When I got pregnant
it felt like waking up at the top of a roller coaster.
And then an engagement.  
Somehow
this is how my life is going
and somehow it does not feel like cliche.
Ask as many what-ifs as you want
but there is just a single trajectory.
Even though you have to fall asleep one day
before waking in the next.
Moving through concentric circles and trying to find the center.
Biology is happening
in a part of me that I am still getting to know.  
Kaleidoscoping.
She was once the size of a grape
but now I read she can blink her eyelids.
She is also not like the barn swallows.
Courtney Jun 2018
She wears long sleeves to hide her scars he smokes a cigarette in the back of his car. They’ve been pushed to the point of wanting it all to end. They have an unborn child which they don’t know yet, it was a one night stand that left her with regret.

They don’t feel like they can raise a child but those two pink lines make her feel better now, it’s a fresh start and a second chance for him to be a better man than what he is now and what his father was growing up a chance to wake up every morning next to the woman he loves.

She’s afraid of the mother she will be, afraid that her little girl will be sitting in her room alone comforted by an empty bottle and a blade with so many tears streaming down her child’s face just like hers did.
Aa Harvey Jun 2018
A part of the process.


As the cadence of my voice becomes a part of your tongue,
I communicate with you in silence using telepathic thoughts.
You are still growing and as of yet you are unborn,
But creation has begun
And there are many things you are learning
And so much more that you need to be taught.


Whisper to me and I will fulfill your needs;
A daily dose of unending love is what you give to me.
So happy inside your little bubble;
Will you grow up to become a lot of trouble?
Or will you bring us the contentment we have been searching for?
You are a moving hand found beneath the rubble and we are all yours.


A light in the dark, a glint in the eye;
A smile and a wink and it was bed time…
And so you were formed, so soon to be born;
Nobody fully prepares you for all of the love.


The fun you bring with you and the changes;
What are the chances of my mind changing?
They are not even remote; they are not a possibility.
We are creating a planet; you are my world and my everything.


And when you are with us, our cherub is helpless;
But we will help you with whatever you need
And do whatever it takes to make you happy.
I don’t mind changing a ***** or two…
It’s just a part of the process
And you are now a part of our family.


(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.
Joe Baldwin May 2018
.3%
.3%

My mind is consumed with worry
Over a subject that is 99.7% unlikely
Yet that .3% barks at the gate of my mind
Like a German Shepard at a mailman.
I realize it is a small percent,
But it is huge in my mind and in
This moment of uncertainty.
.3% means a second job, and sleepless nights.
.3% means giving up on the youth
That we have recently re-discovered.
.3% means struggles that we are not prepared to face.
.3% means we become boring for a while,
And hope that we remember how to have fun years from now.
.3% means forced interactions with family members,
And eventual awkward conversations
Filled with unwanted opinions on how to treat the .3%.

And now I wait
On a visitor that never calls ahead
But always shows around the same time.
A visitor that means sacrifice and stress, but at the end of the day
Puts my mind at ease with their reassurances of the future.
So please forgive me
For constantly asking if they’ve arrived
Carrying their red suitcase
And marching through the airport
Preaching the good world of 99.7%.
Ophelia May 2018
Big belly me
With wild bubble gum fantasies
Hands stretched to dirt
And waiting
I used to get lost in shapeshifter drywall
Marker pressed to cracked paint
Crayola Picasso

Big belly me is giddy like
sidewalk chalk potions
sugar strawberries and flavored play-doe

Your tiny fingers will trace
worlds undiscovered in
sand castles
we blow to the wind

And
closets are doorways
Not sanctuary’s
Home is not whispered to
late night beanie babies
With salty eyes

It is in my arms
So long they wrap around twice
Pregnancy has been one of my greatest adventures. Breaking family cycles of abuse and addiction will be my next.
Next page