Dying to be Born

Please Note - this poem is not my work, but a contribution by another post-abortive woman who is suffering after her abortion - my comments follow.


Dying To Be Born

Did they put you in a jar?
or a tube?
before they tossed you aside
in some rusty old sink
like garbage....

I'd like to call up
God
and ask Him
why...

Why
my cries were
never heard
and why no one ever cared
and why I
was left
without you.

Why
you never
had a birthday
and no songs
were ever sung
and why
you never even had
a fighting chance.

And why
the only place
that I will ever
hold you
is in the hollow of my
heart.

Then,
I would beg God
to never be
forgiven...

Fearing if I were,
somehow that would mean
I would
have to let
you go.

Just like I did
on that day
when they put you
in a jar
or
a tube
and tossed you aside
in some rusty old sink
like garbage.

There are some
who say
it does not matter...
but
I do not agree.

For I know
I would have
loved you
had I ever had
the chance
to be
your
mother.

by Merry May Brickley

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Note by blog author:

This poem is graphic imagery at its best. Instead of assaulting the senses, and stimulating the amygdala, that part of the brain which processes sensory perception for emotional content at a sublevel, poetry and verbal depictions approach the mind at its higher levels. We can still "see" the outcome of abortion; but we see it in a way that allows us to process it in our minds first, and not in the state of alarm which graphic pictures and sounds elicit, a state of mind that temporarily shuts down any thought process not related to fight/flight/freeze in defense of what is perceived as life threatening.

It is also a "safe" way to approach those who have already been traumatized. It may trigger visual memories, but it does not necessarily recreate them, or re-represent them straight to the already perpetually alarmed amygdala. It is a kinder, less invasive, and more effective way to approach the traumatized brain, heart, mind, and soul.

And on another note, a counselor once told me that I should not define myself by my abortion; she was kind, and meant well. But she did not understand. We do not define ourselves by abortion; abortion defines us, whether we will it or not. Read the poem again, and hear the cries, anguish, and despair of the woman who aborts against her will, and who spends the rest of her life mourning her lost child. And if you still do not believe, and you have children, then try to imagine how you would spend the rest of your life if you lost one of those children. Do you think you would be defined by it? I think you would; there would be an emptiness, a vacuum that could not be filled. And if you had a part in the death of that child, I can tell you with certainty that you would never be allowed to exist outside of or apart from that experience. It would define you, too.

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What have we learned here is
Love tastes bitter when it's gone.
Past yourself, forget the light
Things look dirty when it's on.

Funny how it comes to pass
When all the good slips way
And there's no around
You can remember being good
To you.

Shame,
Shouldn't try you;
Couldn't step by you,
And open up more shame,
Shame, shame.

~ "Shame," Matchbox Twenty