#midwife
A preludium of a morning.
The sudden sound
of the calling bell.
A woman's waterline
breaks through the walls.
The rowing of
the midwife commences.
Charting transitions
by its miniscule degrees, integers.
Looking in on the mouth
of the womb as holy land.
Negotiating with the flustered ******
coaxing her widening.
The gated reverb of labor
is a miraculous performance
unique to each woman.
Earth shudders,
believing the restless hour
to be an act of God,
come hither in the shadow
of expectation.
A pantomime then between
midwife and mother.
Stage directions float
above the frightened audience.
Each hour is a little war.
But love of this nature
is an underwater dancer,
it asks you to trust the danger.
The ripples.
The siege.
The arrival.
A time of quiet.
"Beginnings are such delicate times."
Apr 27
Apr 27, 2026 at 3:44 AM UTC
my bones miss structure
even if it’s borrowed
a timetable stitched from deadlines
just enough to tie me to something
outside my own spiraling
now, all i have is time
feral and barefoot
spilling into corners
where potential goes to wilt
too much of my life for nobody to hold
no duties to tether me
no rush, no reason
just the sound of myself growing louder
my hands itch for anything but survival
let me bleed for burden and responsibility
instead of rotting in my own brain
let me fall apart for someone else
still, i need to stay alive
to wrap the babies in my warmth
to meet the mothers
between screams and surrender
so they’ll finally feel safe with me
for now, i stare at the scars on my wrist
and think of all the pain i’ll carry differently
when it’s not just my own
but from holding too much of another life
and never letting it slip away
the lives i hope to live long enough to see
so when they breathe for the first time
i’ll know how to do it too
Jun 25, 2025
Jun 25, 2025 at 12:42 AM UTC
Once my birth was simple:
you made me up unwillingly;
I leaped from your forehead like
Athena did from Zeus'.
You were more than just a father-figure
and back in those days
you found joy in my design.
From a glance of you
I learned the light,
from another the darkness itself.
I craved to know more
but somehow you lost the will teach me;
to finish my making real.
And now
in the embrace of
your torturing abandonment
I became my own midwife:
to learn my own creation,
to be my own design.
Mar 25, 2017
Mar 25, 2017 at 2:28 PM UTC