Birthday

by jesssouthwood

Every baby’s legacy is
A pain memory
A stripe of it
An agony
A gash
An iron taste
A bloody injury
But for you, small thing
I wish it were not so
You had no time
To be other than
The wound
And there’s my loss
It cannot be redeemed
I long to take revenge
But against whom?
Those others
With their willing wombs
They do not see
The cost
The price of you in me
My seed
My seed grown big
But nothing more
You did not bloom
I want to spit and
Stub my toe and
Chew my skin
A thousand petty hurts
I dream of open veins
Yet life goes on
Years, years
Years pass and
Other hurts appear
I welcome them to aid
The other pain
To feel reborn
To birth my grief again
And bring you back
But you are gone
Just crumbs of you remain.