Poetry Talk

New post from Comfort

Womb of mortification

They say the night forgot me,

Though

Even the air remembers how he held me wrong,

Each whisper still sleeps inside my skin,

coiled like worms that dream of wings.

I did not ask for this harvest

this seed sown in my ruin,

this child who kicks against my ribs

as if begging to be forgiven for existing.

My womb became a cemetery

where tomorrow comes to rot.

I feel it move and wonder

if grief can grow a heartbeat.

It demands love with each kick,

but I am still negotiating with the bones in my chest.

Mirrors break their gaze on me,

afraid to chart the scars that bloom beneath my skin.

The water runs red sometimes,

but the doctors say that’s normal,

they don’t see the prayers clotting inside me.

If I keep it,

will the child learn my silence,

inherit my trembling hands

and call it lullaby?

Sometimes I press my belly and whisper,

“I’m sorry you were born from a wound.”

And the womb answers back,

“It’s the only w

ay life ever enters this world.”