Writing the wrong poem.

Imagine writing something, then discovering, twelve years later, that you didn't know squat. I am sharing this today because sometimes in the midst of the world on fire, people are fighting private battles. To anyone who has known this kind of loss, I hope you find some kind of light along the way.

Miscarriage

You bow each time you see a septic tank.

A forgotten graveyard

for the blood clots you flushed

when your body didn’t catch

that almost-life,

because it was your own God calling it back,

saying perfection is just that much;

something unformed,

hands that never get to touch,

eggs that momentarily hatch

but don’t last.

You held it tight in your arms

then convulsed, cramped,

forced it out,

all that blood staining your clothes,

all that love, flowing out of your heart.

You bow each time you see a septic tank,

and remember,

the almost joy,                        

and then the emptiness in your womb.

Thoughts:

When I wrote this poem, my sister had just suffered a miscarriage. I had no idea then the kind of heartbreak she was going through. If I knew then what I know now, I probably wouldn’t have written this poem. What can you say to a mother grieving such a loss? I was presumptuous.

A week after suffering a miscarriage, I wrote a letter to my baby.

“The morning before I learned of your death, I cried in the bathroom because of the scale. It was out of battery. Part of it was hormones, part of it was because I was worried that I had put on too much weight, and the doctor would make a big deal out of it. I prepared myself for a lecture, too, but at the hospital, things took a wildly different turn. There was no mention of my weight or anything like that. After 19 weeks and 5 days, you were gone. No heartbeat.

Now, when I look at the scale in the bathroom, I cry in shame. How dare I worry about something as trivial as weight? How did I not know your heart had stopped? I swear, I still felt you. Maybe I had only imagined your kicks – flutters of movement in me. It’s sad to imagine my womb had become a tomb for you, too, at least for a while. I wish I had held you when your heart stopped. Told you I loved you. Ushered you to heaven with a lullaby. It saddens me that I was oblivious to it all, that I didn’t hold on to you enough. I am sorry, I didn’t know until the doctor told me.  I hope you are not lonely. I hold you in my heart now and forever.  I hope I was worthy of the gift you were to me. For those brief months, I was happy to be your mother. I hope you know how loved you were, and how much you meant to me. You were my everything.”

I didn’t know any of these feelings when I wrote this poem.  I think about how wrong I was to have thought of it as almost-life. For however long my sister had been pregnant, she loved her baby. It was not almost a baby. It was a baby. It was its parents’ hopes, dreams, love, an answered prayer.

I also didn’t know about the anger and guilt a mother feels after losing their baby before they are born. Guilt that their bodies failed. Anger that their God failed them. How they scrutinise their every thought during pregnancy and wonder if their poor baby felt their doubt or uncertainty.

Because I was in the second trimester, I was induced and went through labour to complete the miscarriage process. After pushing its tiny body into a metal bucket, I dropped my exhausted yet relieved body on the bed. Later, when I thought of it, I felt guilty. I could not look at my deformed baby. What kind of a mother was I? I didn’t even look at my baby. What kind of mother left her baby there? What kind of mother felt relieved after pushing a dead baby out? At the time, I thought I wanted to keep the image I formed in the first ultrasound, when the baby was alive and kicking its long legs. But this reason didn't matter at all.

After, the hospital cremated the fetus. We held a service in the hospital chapel a month later [together with other families that lost their pregnancies that month]. They buried the ashes in the cemetery. I am grateful we were able to experience this kind of ritual and closure. I think about the mothers who do not get to commemorate their loss.  When my sister lost her pregnancies, the doctors sent her home with the inducing pill.

It’s been many months since the miscarriage. Sometimes, when I think of the labour (miscarriage) pain, I am grateful. Somehow, it makes this empty hole in my heart more real. The sadness comes and goes as it pleases. Sometimes it enters with the cool breeze through the balcony door. Sometimes it comes from the aching of my belly. Yet somehow, I have carried on.