Son

Within my body, I held you tightly.

Morning sickness and stretch marks found a friend in me those early months.

Through the strained skin, I felt your movements

Quiet whispered warnings of motherhood, I readied for your debut

Blue blankets and tiny clothing decorated my bedroom,

Teddy bears lined the walls against the flat sailboats.

.

Water burst free in midnight's calling hour, I poured myself from bed.

Leaking fluid on to towels, tucked between my teenaged legs,

I puddled the car seats, wet and shaking, on my way to my doctor's voice.

With hours of induction and the sun's midday marking, my voice hoarse from screaming,

Your tiny fingers clawed free from the mother womb into late April.

Bleeding, cold, and shivering, I collapsed into darkness. I did not hold you in my arms.

.

Grandparents fluttered the waiting room, waiting with nervous pacing,

Peeking through large windows for your appearance, camcorder charged in ready hands

Small bundle of dark thick hair, born pouting your rosebud lips, almost seven pounds,

The crowd went wild, flashes snapping, rolling film, as four hours I slept.

Hunched and swollen, the wheels came rolling and I held you, afraid and stiff.

Breakable small, I touched you like fine china, uncertain of my clumsy self.

.

Eyes, dark blue night skies, opened to me between long thin black lashes,

Crossed and uncrossed, focusing on my face, I coo-ed in wonder

I giggled in amazement of my body's creation.

Sore and stitched, my body felt strange without you in it, empty

My shell left suddenly alone robbed of your heartbeat

My Miracle completed successfully by a breathing soul.

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Years passed me, adding your siblings, putting gray in my hair and lines by my eyes,

Ever changing you grew and learned and became and grew more.

I was your cheerleader, learning new routines in changing times.

From milk teeth to adult teeth with braces, clear skin to outbreak

All in between, I wore out cameras with your images and milestones.

Time dripped slowly to you, but ran for me stopwatch quick.

.

Now an adult, choices are hard for you, haunt you in nightmare fashion

You drop them like bricks on glass, they shatter cutting your tender fingers.

Shards of mistakes, of disappointment, shards of broken plans,

The ticking watch did not miss a beat during your torturous naiveté.

You stare at walls as I stare at you, chain smoking sweetness in the air

Blank blue eyes on a naked wall, fingerprinted by ghosts and inner demons

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My words offer no comfort for the comfortless, no house to thought or wisdom

Unbelieved and disheartened, I am invisible to you with your teenage logic

Perpetually wrong and perpetually wronged, a victim tag you pick

Worthless Mother! Worthless being! A tragic family you paint yourself

I wring my cold, long fingered hands to the song sung on those lips

There is no right answer, there is no right reply, and there is no 'fixing' me.

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Helpless as I was during your birth, I find myself in pain with dark shadows

Once more I scream to deaf ears, I reach out and cannot touch another person

The dark night envelops me, tucking me back-back-back into the folds

You walk away, not looking back, yelling contempt and hatred, it echoes

I am loosing my motherhood, that badge I worked so hard to take.

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Empty and without words, I sink into the murky burrow created

I am the failed one, the one who did not count, I am not me anymore.

Ripped and huddled, your footsteps sound fainter and shallow as you leave

Tears are too bitter for my inflated disappointment, it does not matter anymore

Bound in rope-like mistakes, loving your own pain, I am discarded

The pit in my stomach burns, I clinch my muscles in anticipation

.

A mother without a son,

A feral cat, tamed and abandoned,

A mouse without a house,

---I bled for you--

------I bled for you----

-------I bleed for you still----