I write of amorphous shapes of despair and heartbreak, because I do not yet have the words, nor the energy, to reshape into haikus the first three months of my premature infant daughter’s life. So while you compose lyrical vignettes yearning for your lover’s embrace, I wait in this sterile cold hospital room. I wait while countless faceless nurses poke my child with an inexperienced hand, attempting to draw blood for but another test. I wait while they slap on two, three, four monitors to her tiny frame, leaving no mystery or beauty to those miraculous breaths and heartbeats. I wait for the spinal taps, and the MRIs, lung scans, and ultrasounds, scratching out my eyeballs from the burn and itch of restless breathless nights. I wait while doctors stand outside her hospital room door discussing her case in awe of the idea of some rare disease attacking her body, to only end up sounding slightly disappointed when they come in to tell me she is “still fine”. I wait while they shake my hand and explain all the possibilities of every mother’s nightmare, and respond to my questions as if I were a complete and total moron. I wait while the fucking fifteenth nurse asks me condescendingly “is this your first baby” while I fumble with her bottle, as they hover over my every move. I wait to sleep at home with my beautiful fiance, who desires my body in ways I have forgotten exist in me. I wait and wait and wait to leave these walls and escape back to my life, with a God willing healthy happy baby. I wait three more hours before they remove her iv line, give us papers to sign, smile, and will no doubt say some witty statement about us finally leaving and Anabel ( our child) “behaving herself”, as if she has any say in the matter of her fate. As if any of us truly do.
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