The Offspring (5/30)

“You will be a great mother.”
The excess testosterone in my body at puberty not only dictated the jungle that covers it,
the breasts of permanent D-cups,
but also the hormones that will drive my body to addiction
and death
should the government dictate
I must carry this child to term.
No spina bifuda here
just a wandering Y chromosome
that fought too hard in utero and settled in my organs -
It makes a rare symphony of me,
And I compensate with fluted skirts, feminine pageantry
to distract from the rest of me.
That my well of patience is 3 shallow buckets reserved for holidays doesn’t help.

“You will be a great mother,”
breaks the bones I forget I have.

The day the OB/GYN looked straight in my eyes and said,
“There is a ninety-five percent chance you will miscarry,
and a seventy-five percent chance you will require medication -
medication that will cause birth defects and retardation -
just to survive your pregnancy….”

that was the day I chose publishing over family,
machine over man.
I love my children.
I will murder them when they are a cluster of cells
too small to register a heartbeat,
rather than with neglect
or a Lady Macbeth scene of out out damn spot,
out out damn baby,
Holding infant heads underwater
and sitting in jail all of my remaining days for a case of Alien Body Syndrome.

I am pro-choice because I love my children.

Not every womb is built to sustain life,
not every body is capable of keeping it.