i came along like an accident, just after my mother’s first miscarrage. i dropped into her life like a toy from a claw machine. who\u2019d thought she\u2019d win a prize, much less the one she wanted.<\/p>\n
days turned into weeks and weeks into months. her belly grew disproportionate. her thin frame couldn’t restructure her body with how i was growing.<\/p>\n
the doctors declared i was going to be premature; their idea was to let my mother stay pregnant until she had a natural birth. i was born a month late; christmas eve turned into late january. when going into labor, they brought an incubator and placed it at the end of her bed. the next day, i came, breaking her hips and almost ripping her in half: 8 pounds, 12 ounces; 24 inches long; 1987; poverty\u2019s healthcare.<\/p>\n
they had to circumcise my eyes.<\/p>\n
the next baby died. my mother hadn’t realized she lost the child until it was floating beside the bloodied toilet paper. in a panic, like a hiccup, she reached the knob and pushed. the fetus was flushed like diarrhea. in a silent shock, she stepped away and left the room, sleeping for days. she could feel the new emptiness inside her, like a balloon deflating.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
my womb is a cloth sack. multiple attempts at harboring life have been suffocated by the stained walls: the umbilical cords detach & grasp at what little resources exist. children fall from my uterus like ancient coins, deformed & faceless. they drop into a well & become ghosts who cry\u2014mother, mother, why have you disposed of us. a profile comes from the shadow. the light absorbs into what should be the body & it stays void. it holds my hand; wet, puffy fingers slide up my arm. it reaches down my throat & i cough myself awake. the doctor tells me that the cancer has grown more than the stillborns. it thrives in the waste. i go home & give it a name.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
i sit on my porch, in a wooden chair split down the center by rain & moisture. there are two couches stacked in our side yard, diseased. we discarded them years ago after four of our babies died from parvo. they’re a statue of remembrance. the weather is refreshing. spring blooms like the yellow threading through thick weeds in the abandoned house’s yard, next door. it\u2019s been cold for months. i smoke a cigarette. a breeze blows through my house, drying the floors. last night it rained & the humidity festered down in the splinters of the old hardwood. time shifts in my memories; the couches fall apart & rot\u2014the fabric is torn & mold grows through them like an abandoned chernobyl. the cigarette burns & we’ll never remember the ashes. the dogs are buried in the backyard: we cover them with earth, their bodies like pieces of treasure. a lone cloud gets lost in the baby blue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
i came along like an accident, just after my mother’s first miscarrage. i dropped into her life like a toy from a claw machine. who\u2019d thought she\u2019d win a prize, much less the one she wanted.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":21132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3530],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-flash-fiction","writer-john-compton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20648"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21133,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20648\/revisions\/21133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}