whose life is this
cells—
clustered
like thought
become?
a moment where
maybe—
the silence grew
formless
and mothered itself.
birth, no, not birth, not yet.
cells, a universe in a petri.
should-have-been hearts—
echoing with almost.
not breath.
just buzz—
potential clinging to molecules
like whispers in a hollow of almost.
what could be.
what isn’t.
splinters of skin that haven’t
been taught to feel.
and who decides?
a mother, no, the cells,
a courtroom, a choice—
or was it time, after all,
that slashed the thread?
clenched fists, but whose?
whose anger grows
in shadows of what could have been?
not yet hands,
not yet cries
but somehow, still,
almost.
but the mother—
silent in the noise,
her body knows before the mind can speak.
cells stir,
but so does she—
whose life is this?
they say: potential,
they say: a spark,
but what of the one whose flame already burns?
who builds,
who holds the weight of this world,
this choice,
this moment?
it is her skin that stretches thin,
her blood that circles the unknown.
how dare they call her vessel
when she is sea and storm alike,
and her choice
carries weight
like galaxies pressed into a single tear.
not vessel.
not host.
but a universe herself—
made of choices,
of breaths already taken,
of dreams older than the cells they cradle.
it is she who holds the knife,
the thread, the time.
not them, not those who watch
from a distance,
who never bled,
never held a future in the palm
and weighed its weight against their own.
she will decide—
her voice breaking like dawn,
her hands steady as stone.
life is hers, not borrowed,
and it is she
who will write what comes next.
they call it a question,
but to her, it was never in doubt.
), my two miscarriages were painful, and had they happened in another state after Roe v Wade was overturned I may not be here. Even with my two pregnancies that came to term, there were so many complications during the pregnancies and deliveries that I may not have received the care I needed to survive. Even the hysterectomy that resulted later resulted in surgery shortly after because I was bleeding so badly at home that I almost didn’t make it through. I’m sorry for over-sharing, I just think people need to know the decisions these men are so callously and lightly making are literally taking the dreams, hopes, and lives away from countless women. We’re safe in Minnesota, but for how long?
