Motherhood's Betrayal

To be pregnant with death,

How do I trust a body that betrays me?

I felt the growth of a child that had died inside weeks ago,

How is that possible?

How is it possible to have a relationship with a body that was never mine to begin with?

It was sold, bartered, and held captive in my childhood.

My body was objectified by family, sold to strangers in Montana at the tender age of 16 years old.

At 19 years old, I was sold to a man in New York City - to define what I would later learn as being a "survivor of sex trafficking".

This body of mine that governments have tried to control and deem what is choice and medical necessity in the lens of reproductive justice.

At 20 years old, I "chose" to have an abortion in North Carolina by pill.

At 35 years old, I needed a medical abortion by surgery due to a miscarriage that broke my heart into a million pieces.

Another betrayal of my body and a failed attempt at intuition.

When will I learn? How will I learn?

I feel dead inside - I feel death inside.

Dearest little one,

I am so sorry we never got to meet,

Although I felt you growing in my body, it was nowhere long enough and I grieve the loss of the

could-have-been's and the short time of what was....

I know you are stardust, and I look into the sky for your glimmer.

The nights feel lonely and the days feel unreal without you in my womb.

How can I miss someone so much that I never got to meet?

There are no words for grieving a loss, that is a miscarriage.