Sunday, October 03, 2004

i have so many memories.

the texture of his hair when i reached forward into the front seat to touch him. counting down the seconds until 3:30 in the morning. looking up and out the window at the plane seemingly suspended in the air just after the sun rose in the sky. the way the clinic smelled. the oxygen in my nose. the giant pool of blood i found under me. vomiting six different times at the clinic. the look on the nurse's face, her badly placed eyebrow ring. the shape, the size of my baby on the ultrasound picture. the way i forgot to ask to see it again before i left. her scream into the phone, her loud and piercing "MURDER." suspending my legs off the end of the table. necia hugging me for the first time. asking god why he hated me when my car wouldn't start. shivering with him at the gas station. the expression on the protester's face.
my baby.
my beautiful, beautiful baby.

i have so many memories, and now they're all i have.

every time i pull my pants down to make sure i'm not bleeding to death, i smell the clinic again. my tongue still swells with the taste of the "twist up" they made me drink. each time a tear rolls down my face, i feel him wiping them off of me and hear the echos of his "awwww." and when she looks at me, all i see behind her eyes is my baby, my beautiful baby.

my memories. every painful one. they're all i have.

i talked to god on the ride home. in the backseat, still twilighting, laying down under my jasmine sleeping bag with offspring in my ears. i talked to my baby. my beautiful, beautiful baby. they loved me, they said, and i did the right thing. right for us, right for him, right for me. and someday, my baby will come back.

these voices, these moments trapped in my head. i have nothing else.

pro-choice advice, it was all right. i feel relieved. but she was right, they were right, too. i miss it. my baby, my beautiful beautiful baby. it promised to come back someday.

someday. but for now i have its picture, all the moments and the way i heard it in my head. it's all i have.

*bettie* at 3:39 PM