I am cold. My feet won’t move. I try to shake them and nothing. I can’t get them off of the table. The room isn’t cold or hot or anything.
I am still wet in the fluids and tissue. My nostrils are round but filled and blocked. My breathing is not difficult. It just isn’t there. The lights are not bright. My family isn’t here. There
I can’t feel the happiness that might had been meant for me, given some other time. Given some other doctor with gentler hands, with momma who didn’t get beat down so many nights in a row. Or didn’t drink so much or shoot dope. But she did, and so did he. He hit her hard with brief, powerful swipes. The womanhood was knocked out of her. It fell like blood that trickled from a fountain. But both of these things don’t matter.
I am dead. I am not alive, and it is your fault. Now you are alone. The cold night draft runs under the crib and up and over my toys. New baby shoes that were never used. New baby clothes that were never given up as much as given away. I am hoping that you don’t have to run around my feelings, but I don’t have any. I am stillborn. And I am still dead.