Poems from the Interim: Isn't it Funny You Can Still Laugh While Feeling This Way?

Sometimes both my pregnancies seem like they didn’t happen,
Or like something I read in a book.
Something that happened to someone else
That I experienced only vicariously
Not viscerally

It’s like I’m wounded and bleeding
But I’ve been drugged
And I don’t notice the blood pooling beneath me
Except maybe a little tingle several layers down
Under my skin

And sometimes I'm melodramatic

like a goth teenager:

Nothing matters

Nothing good will happen

Nothing is worth doing 

Nothing can lift me back out of this

And into the sun 

I’m forever cracked and broken and numb

Bleeding

Forget about it. 

I’m not here for this, these tragedies

These heartbreaks—such a cliche word, but

Really, it’s like my heart is physically

Broken in pieces. My chest hurts—

I’m not doing it. Just cut it out. 

Isn’t it funny

That you can can still laugh

While feeling this way?

Sometimes I close my eyes and force myself

To own it

To picture Ruby’s tiny fingers circling mine

To remember the feel of Emma’s head

Under my lips. 

To relive that night I lay there in the hospital bed

Unable to sleep

Pressing my fingers into my belly

To feel someone kick

As I smiled.