the baby clot I killed my baby. It's mosquito season and I feel like writing about it now. The nurse wore pink and had dyed orangey hair and clownish make up on wrinkled skin. And she felt very kind. I instantly liked that she didn't seem medical or sanitized or professional. I was worried about it but I really liked her. The doctor was very old and prim and proper and told my ex that he shouldn't "approach" me without a contraceptive if he doesn't want me to get pregnant again. I liked him too. He seemed elegant and ancient and hidden away in clinics with yellowing walls. And at that moment he felt like my hero too. Before that, every second dragged. Everything felt slow but I'd look at a clock or a calendar and suddenly panic that these chunks of interminable time slipped away. I was scared and guilty and very tired. I got so hungry and I felt a tiny something on the right that stopped me from sleeping. The night I got home from the clinic, I was still partially knocked out. I remember tasting anesthesia on my breath before everything went black. I felt weak for longer than I wanted. I was so relieved the first time my legs felt strong again and I bounded up the stairs. And it was strange and familiar to feel completely exposed to some people and so distant and shrouded from others. I guess it's always been that way. I forgot how it feels to hide something big. But I must've done that all the time in uni. Now, I feel suspicious of my body. This line under my belly button darkened. And I feel like my skin is different. I feel like my body thinks it failed. I got taken care of and I got yelled at, sometimes by the same people.
I was thinking about scheduling and what I should wear and bring and then he said it was four weeks old. Everybody has a different trigger. It's funny what suddenly opens the floodgates-- how and when and nobody ever really knows why. Work made everything drift away. It became this thing that stiffened conversation if it accidentally came up. I think about sex differently. I still think about sex. I started counting people again. I watched this comedy film about some statistic to do with a woman's number of sexual partners in relation to the likelihood of her settling down. It wasn't very funny. I liked it though. So I started counting-- and it's ten. I remember when I felt bad about having more than one handful. Two of them were one night stands. In the morning. They were awful. But funny. Two of them I'm not sure I was ever attracted to-- I don't see it now. Three of them I loved. One was confusing. He was on some kind of drug that made me feel like he wasn't actually there. Which made me feel like I wasn't actually there. And the first one was purely experimental and I think there for the purpose of ridding me of my hymen. The last one has pretty eyelashes and got me pregnant. And he's so very young. Which makes me feel so very old. One of them --one of the loved-- is a father now. He sent me an email saying he still wanted me (he also called me on his honeymoon and when his baba passed away but let's ignore all that). It makes me so sad. I feel heavy and it's harder to summarize. And I'm craving a mistake to pay attention to. A nice elaborate one to set up slowly and fall from with a sickening thud. I don't want to slow down because if I do now, I'll just stop altogether. I like mistakes. I don't believe in them. They're squished up twisted hopes that set you off in a general direction. |