How I birthed
First the legs, in a sudden fury, jerking the whole, motionless right-side, at first, unheard, silent for too long, feeling all the feels, all the pains and names a birth could give, unherd-ing bit by bit, as if body-packs were now wolf-packs howling, asking for their names.
And I named it legged-two, strength-in-weaklings-muscled, light-heavy-foot, raced whispers down the spine, towards the right, banqueting yawns-reflexes, curling-knee as if in the right bend.
Then, slowly, steadily the right arm came. You would have expected some other limbs, mid-body, the left leg -
numbed is only the feel, cascading over your view:
Ocean-deafened song of the Sirens
Infused with its spit coming to consciousness
So, the right hand and arm, soft, you wouldn't look at them, you'd carry them as you'd carry an animal, soft and unconscious, little memory left, muscle deprived, buried into bone quakes, ebbing the vessels with blood, flowing in pale skin, bone rocks, rapids of translucent invitations to life and movement
The face came all together, on both sides, tongue stretched outside just a bit of it, clogged between cries stretched inside - sounds, muffled as they were, showed the importance of place: inside-out/
All the insatiable heart and strength unfurling
Space can be void to find its meaning, its function
You co-exist as part of it
You could let go through the umbilical cord, yet you don't
You hang on to the humanity of the act
The act of giving birth
Its pains; it pains
You fight; you fight it -
you ask why love can prove so hard,
why sacrifice is on a Cross
This is how I birthed
My father
This is how you can birth
(anyone else)