You never saw the sun.
Created and cradled in the dark
I knew you alive,
inside my body we lived together
-with exception of the kicks your Father felt
no one knew you.
Grief is lonely
and days after you'd left our space
I still felt you move within
an infant ghost
haunting my womb.
Grief is like fear,
gives reasons for fear
-as if I needed more.
I feel alone among friends.
Our worlds stopped that day
-a frozen clock.
Others keep ticking.
Babies are born,
born of friends and strangers.
My guilt buries me during quiet moments.
I could not keep you alive,
Daddy could not save you.
When I first knew of you
my response was not joy
and in many moments I thought
"is this the right time?", "is this the right man?"
did my thoughts betray you,push you away,
make you wish you belonged to some other mother,
did you know I loved you?
Did you feel it before I?
Self doubt and anguish fill me.
I wonder if you left in peace,
lulled to sleep by my beating heart
I like to think that as I slept the night you left
your kicks were spelling " I love you"
in the only language you knew.
Your Father is strength.
His grief expresses at times as forgetfulness,
a symptom of the daily life he took on too soon,
the routine he took on for me,for your big sister.
She misses you,
asks about you often
-what happened and where you are.
She reminds me to have patience
mostly with myself
.
