little bean
I clutch my belly mostly with laughter these days
but it feels the same as when I clutched it desperately
trying to hold you in.
My body’s memory is long,
longer than the nine days you were here
growing inside the left fallopian tube
we thought wasn’t even working.
The last email I could bear to read from babycenter.ca
said that you’d grown to the size of a lima bean,
but you got lost on the way to the place where I eventually grew human beans,
and we found out on what would’ve been your tenth growing day
you couldn’t find your way out of the hall
let alone open the door into the biggest room in my heart.
I have been the doorway between life and death three times.
Twice I opened up to welcome life. Twice my heart multiplied.
Only once did it shrink into me to weep blood.
Three years I longed to open life’s door.
Three years I watched everyone else grow into mothers.
Three years I bled every month; 36 doors closed.
So much had been taken from my body.
All I wanted was to give birth.
I imagine that you walked out of another door:
whole, growing, reaching toward the sky.
but it feels the same as when I clutched it desperately
trying to hold you in.
My body’s memory is long,
longer than the nine days you were here
growing inside the left fallopian tube
we thought wasn’t even working.
The last email I could bear to read from babycenter.ca
said that you’d grown to the size of a lima bean,
but you got lost on the way to the place where I eventually grew human beans,
and we found out on what would’ve been your tenth growing day
you couldn’t find your way out of the hall
let alone open the door into the biggest room in my heart.
I have been the doorway between life and death three times.
Twice I opened up to welcome life. Twice my heart multiplied.
Only once did it shrink into me to weep blood.
Three years I longed to open life’s door.
Three years I watched everyone else grow into mothers.
Three years I bled every month; 36 doors closed.
So much had been taken from my body.
All I wanted was to give birth.
I imagine that you walked out of another door:
whole, growing, reaching toward the sky.
Cookie Hiponia Everman wrote her first poem at 12 years old. She is a writer and editor living near Seattle with her family. Cookie is at work on a semi-autobiographical middle grade novel-in-verse about the Pilipinx American immigrant experience that weaves in Tagalog cosmic mythology. Find her on Twitter @cookie_everman