My baby, my baby
When someone says, "Mom," my body turnsbefore I can stop it.
Hope is a reflex.
A crying child is placed in my arms."You're so good with them."
And I am.
I sway without thinking.
Patience pours from melike milkfrom a body that cannot make it.
I can quiet a stranger's babybut not the griefinside my own ribs.
There is a child I mournwho never had a heartbeat.
my baby, my baby.
I want to create someone—to watch their lashes darken,to trace the map of my husband's smileon a smaller face.
I want to kneel beside scraped kneesand tell them they are safe.
To braid gentleness into their hair.
I want to watch them become,to see what kind of humanwe would make.
Would they feel too much, like me?Would they rescueevery wounded thing they saw?
I want to witness their empathy bloom,to grow older beside them.
Instead, I wake from dreamswhere I am called "Mom," reaching for my childwho isn't there.
My womb is quietlike an abandoned house,
a doorbell that has never been rung.
The body I trusted—locked,with no key,
no living proofof the love that should have made something that breathed.
I carry a mother's heartwith empty arms.
Some daysthat is the heaviest thingI have ever held.
