I am pregnant. Okay, sometimes I get caught on that word. I can’t say it, and I have to remind myself to breathe. Preg (inhale) nant (exhale). Pregnant. (Not that I want it, it’s not even an ‘it,’ except I have no other pronoun to describe it. You know, it’s not even a child. It is an idea.)
I don’t really remember when it happened.
One (Inhale)
Two (Preg-nant)
Three (Exhale)
I think you made me this way. Your sugar hands did this. I wish your sugar hands could feel my belly. It’s still flat but I know there is something inside it. I wish your sugar hands could feel my belly, and my hips and my legs. I miss your sugar hands, cream arms wrapped around my legs, stomach. I miss your milk shoulders and butter neck. I miss your sweet lips and candy smile. I think you made me this way.
I am about to tell you my loneliest secret, something that no one but me (and soon just the two of us) knows. I hide my secret in a cigar box in the back of my desk, at the bottom of my sock drawer, under my bed. My biggest fear is to never be loved, never be wanted, to never have someone look at me and smile. Candy smiles, sweet lips, butter necks, milk shoulders, cream arms, sugar hands. I am pregnant, I am maximum capacity, I am filled to the brim with that tired and despondent want. I want someone to love me.