-Had you’ve had a voice
you would have screamed
you would have cried
you would have mimicked
every muffled sound you’d ever heard
attempting to make your presence
known, calling attention to you.
You did none of these,
you kicked,
when you needed space
you kicked,
when you awoke
you kicked,
before drifting back
into dreams and slumber
You kicked for months
becoming, with each kick,
more comfortable in your
space, in your world,
in the safety of the way
it yielded to your movement
and allayed the possibility
of yearning, so that you were
in each moment soothed
Space lessened in this world
as you filled more of it
growing and becoming you
developing an awareness
and admiring the miracle
crafted into you: your movement
the pulsing of your heart,
the recognition of you as a self-
the developing of a perspective
different from any other, ever
The world ruptured spilling out
everything you knew, your comfort,
leaving you alone in the dark
leaving you no option, but
to leave the world you’d known,
the world within which
you’d become so comfortable
You cried then. You kicked too,
in those last few moments,
of the womb’s protection,
the first moments of its defeat.
But the faith you had nurtured
in your own strength, had ruptured
with the womb, and you cried;
your legs still, you cried.
As you were wiped dry, and the final
rend was made between you
and the world from which you came,
your little voice repeated only one
echo.
In that moment, in this new space, your
own voice surprised you so much
the only action left you was to cry
louder, and you did, becoming lost in
this space, so different, so cold and
loud.
It was all, so much more than you had
ever dreamed of, in that space where
all you did was dream. Your eyes shut
tightly. You must have thought then,
this
was simply one more, though the most
intense, of the many tableaus which had
to that point paraded across your
imagination.
Your breath, a new experience,
quickened and
your little lungs filled and emptied,
your cry
quieted, and you gave yourself to
slumber.