All utterances

are just nuanced screams of terror.

We leave the female body, the mother’s body, via the vagina, or sliced out of the swollen belly.

Either way we scream. Terrified? Appalled?

Over time we make attempts at communication.

Over time we learn control. We carve and sculpt our screams, lower the volume, open the vowel, purse the lips, position the tongue… etc…

Eventually we learn to say “I’m fine thank you. Busy… Very busy…”

As she enters through me, her portal, I consider loss. Irretrievable loss.

I can never put her back inside. She is no longer a part of me.

She leaves me and if I do a good job she will, over time, keep on leaving.

The best case scenario is that I die whilst she holds my hand. If I am lucky my last breath will be full of love, expressed, for her to her.

The present evades me. I am repeatedly found staring, projected into a future where I am lost because I cannot see. Here, I am looking back, to now,

present in a past way. I wonder in the blind hope.

Was I good enough?