Had Baby
Her memories are locked deep inside the well of her heart. The memories hide there, too painful to see outside this well. Knowing the memories are there, hiding, makes her write poetry deep into the night when she can’t sleep.
The heart hurts
It wants to cry
It doesn’t want to remember
To do that I’ll die.
Nothing worth mentioning to anyone but herself. Just bits and pieces of a time she doesn’t want to remember and yet she can’t help but let herself remember. A splinter in the palm hurts, and to remove it hurts, but not to remove it leads to infection. She feels this way about her life. She allows pricks of the needle once in awhile, and, when she does, blood is drawn.
A dark room, a crying baby. The baby wants to be loved and fed. The baby wants to be changed because its diaper is soiled. The baby wants milk in her bottle, not wine on a pacifier crammed into her mouth when she cries. The baby wants to have talcum powder and lotion spread over her body because to have that is to feel good. She doesn’t feel good. She’s cold and lonely. She is that baby.
The baby wants the madness to stop, the chairs not to be overturned, and the wine bottle not to be pitched through the window, a strike against the home team. The sound of shattering glass scares her and she cries, for this she is not rewarded with a hug and a pat on the bottom. The pacifier bruises her lips-again. The baby is older now and still doesn’t want to remember. She’s a child that wants to believe in Santa, magic elves and new beginnings. The child doesn’t want coal laid neatly in a row on the scratched linoleum counter where roaches run and slaps to the face when she asks if she can build a snowman. The snow is so white it reminds the child of angel wings in a picture book at school. The child wants to have new shoes, her old ones let the snow in and when it melts from the heat of her body, it chills her. The child wants a sparkling star, the smell of cinnamon and tinsel on a lighted tree. She gets a halo of cigarette smoke and the dank odor of spilt wine. The child wants birthday balloons and piñatas streaming with candy when broken open. The child gets nothing but a dark closet, a bruised cheek and broken dreams when she mentions her special day. She never mentions it again. To mention it would mean that it is important to her, and to have something important to her would mean having hope. Hope doesn’t live here, she does. The child doesn’t talk much in school. She’s smart and does her work, but to tell someone would mean that it’s really happening. Admitting that she hasn’t eaten in two days would be admitting defeat, and she’s not defeated. She just wants to be remembered. She wants her journey marked; she just wants to have a place in this dark house. She wants to matter. There is no place for her here. She’s an inconvenience, she’s bad, she’s graffiti on her mothers face. There’s no father.
She wants a father.
She thinks she does. She would like a puppy. When it’s closet time, in the dark, she can see a father throwing a Frisbee to a gold colored dog. The child is there too, running and laughing in the bright sunshine, chasing the dog with a Frisbee in his mouth. She catches him by the tail, and he drops the Frisbee, turns and bites her. She cries in the dark closet, her dreams turning to dirty gray slush in the street of her mind.
She grows, and with the growth she becomes curious. Curious to know why she isn’t what her mother wanted. She sees the other girls’ mothers picking them up from school with smiles and hugs. She walks home alone. The girls ignore her. She’s a virus to be caught and, once caught, can never be cured. When they do notice her, it’s to tell her her shirt is torn and her shoes are dirty. She knows this but there is nothing she can do about it. Can’t they see she knows? She wants new clothes, a new dress, a new mother, and a gold colored dog. She doesn’t respond to the girls’ teasing. No one will see her cry. She will be strong like the oak tree next door she can see from the living room window. This is also her bedroom. Rusty couch springs dig at her back when she sleeps.
The tree is proud and strong. It shelters her.
She finds a dollar bill on the sidewalk in front of the gas station on her way home from school. She glances around, crouching and feeling the crispness of the paper. She smells it. She rubs it between her fingers listening to the crinkle. She takes it to the store and buys one small yellow candle and a candy bar. The clerk gives her change, and she holds tightly to her treasure in the small brown paper sack. Closer to home, she stuffs the bag down the front of her pants, assured no hug will give away her secret. She has her mother’s lighter, denying she took it when her mother reaches for it to light a cigarette. Her mother is angry. She punches with fists and stabs with words and the child is in the closet with a broken rib and a small flame of hope. The darkness is beaten back by her small treasure; she can see the outlines of the boxes that take up much of her space. Her mother is gone, at work at the laundry next door. She will stay in the closet until her mother comes home and maybe remembers to let her out. Sometimes she spends the night in here. Sometimes she wants to scream and pound on the wall, hoping someone will hear her fury. She doesn’t, she never will. Admission equals defeat. The pain in her side grows like the flame of the candle in her hand. She pushes the pain away as she has done so many times and opens the flap of the box next to her. Yellowed newspaper clippings and books waver in the light thrown by her treasure. Carefully! So carefully, she holds a newspaper up to the flame of her small candle and sees a title in bold letters racing across the front page. Local Woman Raped, Beaten and Left for Dead in City Park! the headline screams at her. Her mother, it had to be her mother, left for dead in the park. She won’t look further. No, she can’t. Defeat. No defeat here. She drops the paper and looks deeper in the box. Her fingers find a book. She pulls the book out and holds it to the flickering flame. A yellow bird singing in a bright green-leaved tree is on the cover. Little music notes flow from the bird’s mouth. She smiles as she opens the book. What a cute little cheery bird. The book is her mother’s journal. The child recognizes the small neat script that hasn’t changed much over the years. She drops the book to the floor and, holding her side with one hand and her precious light in the other, she settles to the floor to read. Candle wax drips onto her hand and she hisses, pushing the burning out of her mind. Her mother was homecoming queen. Billy Brandon was the king and her one true love. Her mother danced the night away full of cheer and love for Billy. They had several dates, and her mother wrote she was sure Billy was the one for her. The child is in awe of this person she doesn’t recognize. This person, her mother, is happy and full of life and good times. August 13th, 1993, the heading reads. Tears make the script appear to be swimming across the page. This is it, this is why she doesn’t matter.
I’m pregnant. Fuck. Billy won’t have a thing to do with me now and my parents won’t either. They think this is my fault. They think I shouldn’t have been out so late. I was out with Billy. We had a late picnic in the park. We wanted to be alone and I said yes and told my parents I was at Tina’s house. I wasn’t going to stay out all night I was going to Tina’s! Just later after the picnic. Jesus! How is it my fault when he left me there after we argued? He wanted more than a kiss goodnight, I didn’t. He got angry and left me with the picnic basket! I was putting things away when that awful man came and attacked me. I didn’t see him coming. I don’t remember anything but waking up in the hospital in more pain than I have ever felt. Now I’m pregnant and going to give birth to a devil child. This is my destiny, I won’t have an abortion! It’s been two months and no one will talk to me at school. I’m not dirtyimnotdirtyimnotdirtyimnotdirty.
The child flips through the book quickly. The candle is getting low and she’s scared of losing the flame before she finishes.
The last entry.
March 18th, 1994
Had baby.
That’s it. Those words are the birth announcement and celebration of her entrance into the world. How much did she weigh? It doesn’t say. She wonders what she looked like and if anyone was happy to see her come into this world. She doesn’t think so. Grief flows over her like a rogue wave. It takes her and she cries, holding her side, feeling the broken rib scrape her lung. She breathes shallow breaths, deep breaths hurt. She drags herself up and pulls the box to the floor. She falls after it, blood leaking from her mouth. Oh, for a drink of water, one with ice cubes chattering merrily against the glass when it is tilted. She looks further into the box and finds a pen hiding at the bottom. She pulls the pen out and tests the ink on the back page of her mother’s book. The pen works and she scrawls across the paper
had ME im sorry
The book fits under the door, and she pokes it through as far as she can, grunting with effort. The sharp stab of her broken rib pierces her side. She screams and grabs there, willing herself to hold on for just a little longer. She leans back against the wall of the closet and pants. Her candle is a nub now. She no longer feels the melted wax of the candle on her hand. The candy bar is on the floor beside her, she opens it and takes a bite. The chocolate melts in her mouth, mixing with the copper penny taste of blood. She smiles. Nothing she has eaten has ever tasted this good. She finishes the bar and holds the flickering, dying candle in front of her. She studies the flame, hope gone. Defeated. She holds the candle to the flap of the box and smiles when the flame grows.
