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The Loss
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A poem for Pregnancy and Baby Loss Awareness Week.
Words are important to me. They help me make sense of things, understand the world around me, and shape my own narrative. It helped me to write this. I hope maybe it helps someone else to read it. #babyloss #waveoflight
The loss
The blood, just a spot, a smear on the gusset.
The beat in the throat; the rush in the ears.
The phone call, who to see, when.
The journey.
The unreality of practicality.
The wait.
The running late.
The certainly, deep down, it won’t happen to me,
The certainty,
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deep down, that it will.
The bargain – if I worry, if I wind tight, if I torment, if I promise, if I pray, it will be ok, it will be ok.
The mantra. Please be there. Please stay, please stay, please stay.
The tick and bustle and comings and goings and ebb and flow in slow, slow, slow motion.
The scan.
The game – searching faces, searching inside – trying to feel you, find you, will you, hold you, fold you into me.
The hope.
The news.
The distress, of getting dressed – familiar, foreign: final.
The truth, that no one is looking for you now. No
The bargain – if I worry, if I wind tight, if I torment, if I promise, if I pray, it will be ok, it will be ok.
The mantra. Please be there. Please stay, please stay, please stay.
The tick and bustle and comings and goings and ebb and flow in slow, slow, slow motion.
The scan.
The game – searching faces, searching inside – trying to feel you, find you, will you, hold you, fold you into me.
The hope.
The news.
The distress, of getting dressed – familiar, foreign: final.
The truth, that no one is looking for you now. No
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one but me. Nothing to see, here.
The paperwork.
The excruciating kindness.
The walk back, holding back, tears.
The tears.
The jagged edges of raw, rasping, rattling despair.
The emptiness – emptier than if you’d never been there, at all.
The clawing, raging beast of injustice.
The howl that should have been your first cry in MY chest, pressed against my breast –
A cyclone in hibernation,
The desperation, the wildness –
The wilderness.
The loneliness – because hardly there you were most real to me, most mine.
The lie, when I say I’m
The paperwork.
The excruciating kindness.
The walk back, holding back, tears.
The tears.
The jagged edges of raw, rasping, rattling despair.
The emptiness – emptier than if you’d never been there, at all.
The clawing, raging beast of injustice.
The howl that should have been your first cry in MY chest, pressed against my breast –
A cyclone in hibernation,
The desperation, the wildness –
The wilderness.
The loneliness – because hardly there you were most real to me, most mine.
The lie, when I say I’m
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fine.
The savage fist, the drift, the listlessness, wistfulness, repeated again and again
The impotent love, with nowhere to go –
The need to know.
The need to keep you.
The need to get you out.
The bleeding,
The pain.
The blame.
The weight of your betrayal –
The weight of mine.
The hollow core, the cold tile floor as you left me, bereft me, unblessed me.
The analysis – why you went, what I did wrong,
The song – of sorrow.
The heaviness of sympathy.
The assumption that I will get over you, you. You – like you’re flu – done, gone, move
The savage fist, the drift, the listlessness, wistfulness, repeated again and again
The impotent love, with nowhere to go –
The need to know.
The need to keep you.
The need to get you out.
The bleeding,
The pain.
The blame.
The weight of your betrayal –
The weight of mine.
The hollow core, the cold tile floor as you left me, bereft me, unblessed me.
The analysis – why you went, what I did wrong,
The song – of sorrow.
The heaviness of sympathy.
The assumption that I will get over you, you. You – like you’re flu – done, gone, move
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on.
The unfair inevitability of the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.
The sunshine, blue sky and careless, endless, turning, churning, indifferent cycle of life, always
The same.
The shame – of my failure, my unruly feelings.
The depletion, gnawing, grinding incompletion that doesn’t have language or permission.
The space, the echoing, roaring, soaring space, in head, in womb, in heart.
The drift apart.
The new dark.
The
The unfair inevitability of the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.
The sunshine, blue sky and careless, endless, turning, churning, indifferent cycle of life, always
The same.
The shame – of my failure, my unruly feelings.
The depletion, gnawing, grinding incompletion that doesn’t have language or permission.
The space, the echoing, roaring, soaring space, in head, in womb, in heart.
The drift apart.
The new dark.
The
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fear.
Mumonthenetheredge
#babyloss
#waveoflight
www.babyloss-awareness.org
Read more from Sheffield-based mumonthenetheredge at www.facebook.com/mumonthenetheredge, or www.mumonthenetheredge.wordpress.com
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