This poem appears in the recently released Women of the Web Women of the Web Anthology (Sun Rising Books) along with several other poems of mine.

All realized profits from this anthology will be donated to a shelter for abused women.

CHOICE

God is not in this room.

Seventeen, my options are life or death.
Friends choose lipstick shades,
I chose death.

Pale blue polka-dot robe
scrapes exposed skin.
Shock-cold sends bumps
up my arms.

I wait, count grooves
on the ceiling
as shadow puppets
form along streaked green
walls. They turn into clouds.

The doctor arrives,
murky mask covers his mouth;
I see swamp eyes
green with brown, lock,
mesh with mine, then falter.

I hear him take a deep breath -
we breathe together,

flash to when I was five,
scared, sleeping with my dad,
spooning, matching my breath to his,
blood on blood.

The doctor coughs,
whispers, 'count from ten.'
Body prone, I close my eyes
and count.

10 - I'm doing what's right
9 - Going through the motions
8 - My body is not mine, I have released it
7 - No turning back now
6 - The nurse holds my hand, her own clammy and sterile
5 - I grieve, let go

Four

Shiny metal instruments
clink together like a toast
of fine champagne.

Three

Two

Sleep sets in as a sound much like the
hum of Mother's vacuum
fills the room.

One.

Twilight tucks me in.
There's a moon out tonight.

I am with family
they have decorated a yellow room
to house this special life.

I hold the death baby to my chest,
blue blanket wraps round,
I'm transfixed by mirror eyes,
eyes I get lost in,
I can love, protect.

I am full.

A bright spotlight wakes me.
My head pounds.
No baby smells,
no Downy-fresh linens
mingled with Johnson's
baby powder.

The walls have absorbed
creation, first cries, cords to cut,
life.

I wake empty.