when i am holding nothing & holding everything

Spoiler

@Hannah - <3333 Gaw! Thank you. I love the locust poem as well.
@soundofmind - Thank you again friend! And yes for sure with the medical system. I have so much respect for nurses and doctors that are able to navigate health, illness, and death with compassion, but as with many realms of life people can very easily become numbers and objects. As you said, it's rough! The medical side of things was handled very poorly for me and in those types of moments both the kind things said + the terrible things said seem to land so much more deeply. Thank you so much for reading and sharing.
@Snoink - <333333

cw: mention blood

19.

mis - [04.18.26]

[miscarry is such an ugly word -
like someone has simply dropped
something by mistake; rushing
too quickly or holding too loosely,
like if only one had intended life
a little more carefully, everything
would still be held safely together.]

i once dropped an entire snow-globe
on the living room floor as a little girl -
and when the glass and glitter
and tiny porcelain figures shattered
into their horrible puddle - i began to cry
and tried to sweep up the remnants
with my hands, ashamed at my
carelessness - my hands struck glass
and my blood started mingling
into it all - when my mother found me
she snatched me out of my mess
and spent the next half-hour removing
each piece of glass from my skin.

[if you were only glass, i would still
save every piece – i would let your
jagged edges remain hidden in my skin -
i would hold you in the grooves of my hands
until the place where you ended and i began
were forever one piece of an entire whole.]

[long-long after the last flecks of glitter
had been tracked out of our home,
i can still trace the grooves of scars
on my finger-tips.]

[and i promise you – i will not let go.]

20.

this strange wound - [04.18.26]

Grief is strange;
like how you can’t help but run your tongue
against the cut on the inside of your mouth,
returning over and over again to the same wound -
maybe you hope it's healed whole,
maybe you test to make sure the pain is still there.

when i was younger i would inch further and further
into the ocean to see how far i could stand
without the waves knocking me down; i would crunch
my toes into the sand as the water climbed higher
until i would lose my balance and retreat to the shore.

i still don't know what makes us walk further and further
into broken places, where we return again and again
gliding our hands against open wounds and broken glass
and willing the water to hold us up or to let us drown.

i do not think we believe we are icarus, i think we know
deep down that the sun will always burn us alive - and yet
we want to feel its flame, we do not want to be saved
from the heat; we want to know that we were capable
of burning. we want to know what it feels like
to stand against the the tide and then to emerge breathless.

maybe we know this dangerous dance against drowning
is the only way we will ever become unafraid enough to swim.

maybe we search for the wounded part to remember
the taste of blood is better than nothing at all.

cw: violent imagery / medical

21.

'congratulations' - [04.19.26]

Spoiler

[The cheerful nurse at my OB office says “congratulations” as I walk in for my appointment for the ultrasound to confirm I had lost my baby, even though it was already there in my medical notes, the stark line I have read over and over and over again “no heartbeat,” but this is just another day at work for her, and she is too busy to read the only two words that have been screaming in my head for the last week, and I am supposed to be polite to her, because I am only a shell of human cells arranged into the image of a woman carrying a dead body in my womb that will soon shake uncontrollably for hours from grief and pain and won't stop bleeding for three more months. But when I whisper “the baby is already dead” as quietly as I can in the hopes that I won't hear the words myself, she reminds me with a loud perky optimism "It happens!" and I can "just try again!" and her words feel like a surgeon's knife slicing its way through my chest, finding my heart, twisting in. And all I can do is nod and smile. And in this moment I wish I were dead too instead of being carved alive while bleeding out.]

cw: medical

22.

'good holiday' - [04.20.26]

Spoiler

[when I come back after Christmas to confirm that the ‘tissue’ has all passed from my body; I hold my breath as I walk past the excited expectant mothers afraid if I breathe out they’ll sense my grief, and if I breathe in I’ll sense their hope – and neither of us deserve that today. and the same cheerful nurse who told me ‘congratulations’ two weeks ago when I came in to confirm my loss, can’t help but ask if I had a ‘good holiday?’ – I am tired of smiling when people shove their discomfort into my wounds to make themselves more at ease, I am tired of lying with tears clinging on my lashes when people ask if I’m ‘better’ now, I am tired of pretending that the loss of the baby I prayed for is anything less than the end of a life, and so I tell her “no, not really.” and exhale.]

Spoiler

@Hannah <3 Ugh - yes! I am still very angry also. My doctors were so incompetent at dealing with loss - it was unbelievable considering they must encounter these situations very often. Lost notes between appointments... Lost ultrasound pictures... Ridiculous comments like I was there for a wisdom tooth removal or something... And a totally inadequate explanation of what to expect with the physical process which should have been the one thing they could have helped me with... Ugh ugh ugh! Thankfully I am able to switch providers, so hope not to deal with this office in the future.

cw: medical

23.

'panic' - [04.20.26]

[when I asked my ob-gyn what amount of blood-loss would be reason-enough to go to the hospital, he smirked and answered “if you panic” - and so every day for the last four months I have asked myself if I have experienced the threshold of unreasonable “panic” yet that he was referring to or if this is still an acceptable level of pain, terror, and grief]

cw: medical / blood / mental health

24.

'okay' - [04.20.26]

[I have a panic attack at my annual physical, 3 months after I found out you were gone. As they were taking my blood, I couldn’t breathe, or move, or remember where I was, only that you were not here. The nurse asked “if I was okay” three times while drawing my blood, I finally heard her the third time, and bewildered remembered I still have to answer these questions. “Yes” I said, “I am still alive” - I am not meaning to be funny, or sarcastic, these are just the terms I think in now - life and death. And I shut my eyes tight to avoid seeing the stream of blood leaving my body. It is too late though; my blood mingles with your own and flows out like a river, like a flood, like a hurricane, in every new image imprinted of the inside of my eye-lids. Every day, the same scene, until we drown. The nurse averts her gaze, busying herself with her clipboard, so I can wipe my eyes.

When the intake nurse asks if I have any medical history to update for their system I tell her about you, and she actually turns to look me in the eyes and says “I’m so sorry for your loss” – and her words sound refreshingly out of place - there is no test, no diagnosis, no rationally-put-levity, nothing to mark in my chart, just a quiet word of sympathy, from one human to another. After weeks of being poked and prodded, assessed and left, and a dozen nurses and doctors eyeing me with safely detached pity, I have the sense that someone has finally stopped to see me - rather than simply treat me.

When she begins the assessment for postpartum depression, I cry at every single question, in grief over everything, in relief that someone has bothered to ask, hands clenched in at themselves, fumbling with the buttons on my coat, like they might be anchors to stop me from floating away. Yes. Always. Yes. All the time. Yes. Yes. Yes. I feel like I will never want to live fully again. I feel like I am broken beyond any chance of repair. I feel like the sun has burnt out of the sky. I feel like my body is cursed and I am a walking ossuary. Yes. She nods understandingly at each beat and tells me her sister also miscarried and she knows it’s rough, and yes, it’s a horrible thing to go through, and yes, “you’re gonna get through this, you’re gonna be okay hun”. and the way she says it, I actually believe it might be true.]

25.

"What is this that you have done?" - [04.21.26]

(sometimes I wonder what Eve felt like
when she found Abel's lifeless body - her
shepherd boy, her little lamb, her child born
of her flesh, ash to ash, and dust to dust -
blood of her blood running from his wounded head
down her fingers - hands that had swaddled this boy
now turned to cover him in earth's darkest soil -
did she search for the serpent or rage at Adam,
did she grieve for Cain; the fruit of the promise
who became the fruit of the curse, did she blame
herself as she wept or did she scream at God?)

(sometimes I know it is easier to catch the blood
on your hands than to carry the very ribs
that birthed your pain.)

26.

“Where are you?” (Gen 3:9 - Gen 4:25) - [04.21.26]

(sometimes I wonder what Eve felt like
when she found Abel's lifeless body - her
shepherd boy, her little lamb, her child born
of her flesh, ash to ash, and dust to dust -
blood of her blood running from his wounded head
down her fingers - hands that had swaddled this boy
now would be turned to cover him in earth's soil -
did she search for the serpent or rage at Adam,
did she grieve for Cain; the fruit of the promise
who became the fruit of the curse, did she blame
herself as she wept or did she scream at God?)

(sometimes I catch myself wringing my hands dry;
angry and devastated and wondering where He is hiding;
this could not be what was warned of in the Garden -
if the promise was life, then why is the soil's thirst so greedy?
we were told of thorns and sweat, of labor and loss,
but who could bear the burden that the hardest ground to till
would be the bitter dust for the grave of a son?)

27.

we're all dying devastatingly (quiet) - [04.22.26]

[when my mom told my aunt that i had lost my baby, my aunt told my mom that when she was younger she lost 14 babies to miscarriage. my mom never knew, because we’re all supposed to suffer in silence – and so i will weep more loudly for the both of us.]

28.

sorry if it bothers you - [04.22.26]

why does everyone expect those who drown,
to float to the bottom of the sea quietly;
i would hate to upset your boat-ride-floating
with my frantic treading against the tide,
but i have promised myself i will not die silently
only so you can be unbothered.

29.

if i could do undo it all [04.25.26]

[i wish i could undo time, care-less, yet gentle
like my grandmother twirling her fingers around the loose-ends of a crocheted blanket
"skipped a stitch" she says casually, undoing row after row falling in curled yarn,
she doesn't seem to mind, so long as everything sits even in the end -
"not quite perfect" she'll say when it's done even-so with pride
i wish i could undo the last months of bleeding, and wishing
so desperately i would just become a river of blood that would fade into the ocean -
diluted from grief enough to breathe again -
i wish i could unhear all the uncareful words i’ve received that feel like jagged rocks stacked against ribs threatening to burst,
that pour out whenever i start to feel at ease
until my memory becomes a human-avalanche tumbling stones over my body for the optimist to crush with a smile
“at least you can try again” “at least it happened early” “at least you’re young”
i wish i could take back the waiting-room anxiety, fingernails pressed into my palms,
arms bruised from tests that have no right answers,
the nurse asking if i’m nervous because my blood pressure’s kind of high,
the doctor's long pause and pitying look that tells me
what i’ve been dreading before he even speaks,
the heart-curdling-nurse-small-talk when after everything i've been through
she asks if "i had a good holiday?"
when i can't remember what yesterday was, and don't care if i'll live tomorrow,
but i know from now on every time i pass this number on the calendar
i will pause and wonder why this had to be,
i wish i could take back the giggly announcements
and delete every grinning-hopeful photo
from my phone and even more so from my bitter-aching-love-sick heart,
oh how i wish i could undo time, care-less, yet gentle, but only so
i could do it all again,
because at least you were here then,
and despite every weight of loss and pain of grief,
i would live it all again a thousand times
to love you again.]

Spoiler

@cherie - thank you for stopping by friend and for your sweet comments too! <3 (much love back!)

30.

nothing, but absolutely everything - [04.27.26]

The sea holds 97% of all the planet's water,
another 1% is held in the sky, and
one ten-billionth is in human-beings -
one would usually round such a very small
number to 0% and yet it is that
tiny uncountably-small portion that
is contained within the vessel
capable of love and laughter and
dreaming and poetry and when i say
that grief feels like i have lost the ocean
and all the stars and all the sky between -
maybe it seems like a miscalculation,
or exaggeration, but i am not counting love
by drops of water contained in human cells,
but by the grain of sand that carved the mountain
into shore from the drop of the tide that lives
inside our veins, in that little unaccountable
part that only poetry can reach
where we remember we are more
than the sum of numbers, in the
infinite gap between heaven
and here, and life and death, and love
and truth, and everything else
where i reach to hold the hollow place
between the ocean and the sky.