I have a Sacred Need
To never birth a child;
To be solely One
Unto myself.
The only Soul who belongs
To me
In me
Is me.
Invasions, expectations and
Expectancies, violating fantasies,
Assumptions and pregnancies
Are not my cross to bear.
I have a Sacred Need
To BE the Holy Child
That everybody seems
To want me to conceive.
The only child who belongs
To me
In me
IS me:
For thirty years forgotten,
Invisible, neglected,
Parentified, devalued,
Typecast and ignored
By a family
That could only see
My ability
To be my brother’s keeper,
My mother’s caretaker,
My sister’s protector,
My father’s enabler and
My lover’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl.
“Manic Pixie Dream Tarantula”
Said the t-shirt I tried
To order online.
That’s who I really am inside.
Earthy, furry, quietly wild,
Magical, web-weaving, and potentially
Dangerous
(but only for the staunchly uninitiated).
I’ve spent my whole life being
Forced to exist for
Someone else. Why would I
Force someone else to exist
So that I could again
Exist only for them?
My Sacred Need to NOT
Is NOT a lack, an
Absence, a void,
Or deficiency.
It is the only space
I feel free to be
The muchness, the mostness
The magnificence, the majesty that is
Me
Just me.
If only you knew
The relentless fire
That burns in my core with
Destructive/Creative
Self-Realizing, Self-Actualizing
Potential and Power,
Then you'd understand why
I CANNOT compromise.
My Sacred Need to NOT
Is NOT a selfish avoidance,
An act of cowardice,
Or a moral failure.
It is a loving embrace of my
Womb full of cells that would
Inevitably yield a
Graveyard of Souls,
Were they to be nonconsensually
Cursed with life reluctantly
Given by a woman who never felt
Called to be called “Mother.”
It IS the voice of my
Maternal instinct ringing
Deep in the ears of my Soul that says,
“Leave them alone; They are at peace.”
My Sacred Need to NOT
Is NOT a dismissal of my
Sisters who are mothers.
They felt their deep need to conceive
Just as deeply as my own Soul warned me,
“That is NOT Your Way.”
Their path through birth
Is not mine to deny, just as
My path through life is not
Theirs, or yours,
Or my boyfriend’s, or my girlfriend’s,
Or my family’s, or society’s,
Or the (literally)
Motherfucking government’s.
It takes a village
To raise a child.
How can I keep helping
Families in need If I’m
Always too busy with
“My own” kids?
Does anyone really
Own anyone else?
“Don’t bleed out on your Golden Path.”
No one can ever be
Spread too thin and
Expect to arrive at their
Destiny in One Peace
Or at all.