Elisabeth Writing

I feel like an empty husk. 

Like if you rattled me

in your warm hands, 

you’d hear nothing.

And I’ve tried these months 

to fill myself — 

with hope, 

with music, 

with the life I so long to feel in my womb —

a second heartbeat in the galaxy of us.

And yet nothing grows in this winter place, 

like I am a barren garden,

cursed by the

ones who want me dead — 

mute. 

I can’t fill myself with words,

the way I once did,

in another life.

They escape my shaking fingers,

drip into the bloody bowl, 

swirl red and hateful, 

before disappearing into the ether. 

I try so hard to make the poems,

but find myself lost in the vines,

thorns cutting into my voice,

until I’m on my knees,

in the dirt,

ready to become one with the seeds.

When they ask about that empty space,

I want to scream and cry and shake.

I just smile. 

Shake my head, no, 

not yet —

not this month. 

Maybe the next.

Or the next.

Or the next.

I don’t believe it.

I wonder if they do.