I feel so full,
and soon to be so empty -
but there is no room
in this womb
in this life -
you will have to live instead within my heart,
within my soul
within my memories
in the tracings you have left upon my life.

I rail at my life
at my body
at the cruelest of fates dictations,
the turning points that left me
unable to provide you
with a route into the world.

For the measure of my anger
and my pain
and my grief
is the measure used to allot
the love of any mother for her child
born or unborn
living or dead.

They speak of choice
and life
and make it look so easy
and so optional
and yet if life had left me any options
any choices
this would not be my choice
how could it be,
for any mother
with a heart alive enough to beat?

My body fails us both.
Were it not that only loving nurture can repair it
and give me hope of someday
holding you again,
first within my belly,
and then within my arms,
I would rail at it as well;
yet even that I am not free to do.

I want so much to risk it,
to risk failing you and my future both,
to sink or swim with you,
but I am not free to.

There is a child who walks this earth,
and lives,
and loves,
and treasures each and every day -
and needs me.

I took that risk once before, you see,
and some roads can be trod but once,
for after that they crumble at your heels.

And so we stand here,
with only one road forward,
and no choice but one -
will a part of you live with me?
or will a part of me die with you?