Dear Son/Daughter

Today marks three years and still I don’t quite know
whether to tell you I’m sorry, I should have let you grow,

Or if this choice, all mine, was the best—because you see,
dear Son/Daughter, you deserved a better mother than me.

Three years ago today, I kept, at half past noon
the appointment that sealed your—and my—impending doom.

Your father wasn’t there, I was all alone
in the waiting room, debating the unknown.

I was twenty-one, with an apartment, a job, a car,
but no man, and that job was at this run-down bar…

I drink a little too much, that’s what got me in this mess
dear Son/Daughter, would you have been more love or stress?

There were seven other women in the waiting room:
eyes averted, fidgeting hands avoiding soon-to-be-tomb wombs.

Dear Son/Daughter, I saw you once, on the ultrasound machine,
a small spot in the middle of the fuzziness on the screen—

It was never real until that second I saw you.
my eyes began to water, and as if that were his cue,

The doctor told me it wouldn’t hurt, that everything would be okay:
no one explained how empty I’d feel when the knife took you away.

They told me about cramps, bleeding, days missed from work,
but not once did they mention the regrets that would lurk,

Or how every time I saw a heavily pregnant woman, I would sigh
and just driving past Babies-R-Us would make me want to cry,

Or even that now, when I pick my neice up from day care,
I’d wonder what face would have been yours, what clothes you would wear…

But then I think, would this life of mine have been enough?
a commitment like you would have called my unending bluff.

Because I knew I couldn’t give you everything I would have wanted,
I used my right to liberty to take your right to life, which I took for granted.

Yet happiness has eluded me—I hope you found it on the other side:
dear Son/Daughter, please don’t tell me your only chance was the life I denied.

I dress in all black today, asking myself for the millionth time: would morning
sickness have been better than mourning?