How can you prove something didn't happen
when the only witness is you?
When you’re the one curled up on the hexagoned floor
watching the blood seep through
the cotton weave of your favourite skirt
the one that caressed the slight mound
of your stomach, the one you’d hidden
for all those years, flattening it with
girdle pants to be just like the girls
with concave femininity, the ones
who glanced sideways at your tree trunk thighs
sneering as they passed you by
tree trunk thighs with muscles of water
as you scrabble around on the bathroom floor
scooping up blood rivulets in shaking fingers
drawing faces in the most intimate places
imagining eyes of an unavailable daughter
laughter of a boy running towards you
and your arms ache, your stomach burns
your heart expands and the lesson you learn
as your defective womb leaks all over the floor
is: this isn’t for you, it’s too late and too soon
for the world to welcome another like you
Over at dVerse Open Link Night, we are invited by our congenial host Grace to share a poem in response to the prompt she has set, or something else entirely. This week, I have decided to go for something else.
If you would like to take part and also have the opportunity to read other poets’ work, please click on the link, read the post and dive on in!
(Image by Jean Marc Pampuch at Pexels).
This poem hit me like an oncoming train, Freya. It’s powerful and shocking and devastating.
Thank you, Kim.
You’re most welcome, Freya.
so vivid and profoundly visceral and in amongst the lone loss the ones that never were
Thank you, Laura.
Devastating and visceral Freya, one of your most powerful poems I have read. Hits a bit close to home and found myself reliving the pain of loss with ya! Well done! 🩷
Thank you so much!
Wow. That opening couplet draws you in immediately into this powerful, visceral poem, Freya.
Thank you so much, Sunra.
Potent poeming, Freya. This person is going through so much and it sounds like they are going through it alone. I’m glad they are able to document it through words on paper. Just getting it out can help.
Thank you, Lisa. Yes, writing things out is so cathartic.
You are very welcome.
imagining eyes of an unavailable daughter
laughter of a boy running towards you
A young lady will always have an inkling of a King’s pair when starting out. It completes the ideal number of a happy family. A powerful write Freya!!
Hank
Thank you very much, Hank.
The last 3 lines hit me and I know what you are referring to as I have experienced it myself. Powerful writing Freya!!!! Good to read you again!
Thank you so much, Grace. I’m glad to be back!
So powerful and devastating, Freya, and yet there is a certain acceptance in the message taken from it at the end…
Thank you. Yes, acceptance is there, even if buried.
I am so sorry, this poem is so painful 😣.
Thank you, Reelika.
I cannot stop the chills running up and down my body. I cannot recall reading a poem that impacted me the way yours has.
Gosh, Helen, thank you for your kind comment. I truly appreciate it.
What a powerful and sad poem… I can only imagine the loneliness, and the thought of whatifs coming afterward.
Thank you. Yes, whatifs can be tortuous, if you let them.
So very well written and touching. Your poem of life and what it does to us is sad and wonderful at the same time.
Thank you very much.
You are very welcome!