About a Baby

this is about a Baby.

what will we do about

a Baby, and when will we do it?

I'm of two minds,

or maybe three (or four or five),

but I think about it a lot.

sometimes I think

ONE: it would be nice to have a Baby

someday but not now

and other days I think 

it would be nice to have a Baby

now and not someday.

I think I would like to have a Baby

and turn it into a whole Person.

I would take care of it with you, 

and we could teach it things

and take it places,

see if it likes the same foods as us

and find out what it's good at,

laugh with it and cry about it and

probably get into some fights, but

I think it would be good to have

a Baby.

I think we would make good parents,

even though I worry about some things;

that's nothing new,

that's normal.

but then I think

TWO: what about School? 

it's taken me years to get to

this point, to figure out what I

want to do, what I could be good at.

I'm so close to being done, but

maybe I won't finish at all if we have a Baby now,

or maybe I'll finish first and then we'll have a Baby--

but then what was point of School?

what about the actual

THREE: Job? how do these things fit together?

I'm not even done with school yet and I already wonder

things like "what's the point of finishing or

even trying to get a Job when

we want to get pregnant soon? 

when will I even have time to get a Job?

what if I'm already pregnant when I start looking?

how long could I work?

what if I have to leave and I don't go back?

will I resent you, will I resent the Baby,

if I don't get to do the Job?

will I want to work if I'm staying home, or

will I want to be home if I go to work?

will my Baby make me miss my Job

or will my Job make me miss my Baby?"

And sometimes I worry I will resent you

for not having to make this choice,

because I already do resent it a little.

Not a lot, not anymore, but a little.

And what about

FOUR: the fucking Pandemic?

I can't really know but it feels like years

we have left of this. years. 

and that makes me feel like we can't wait,

we have to just do it now.

but another part of me thinks,

"this is so fucked up.

how can I be pregnant in this Pandemic

when I can't even go to the store,

not-pregnant, without feeling on-edge?

I can't meet new people. I can hardly meet

not-new people--getting close to anyone is a risk.

only moreso with a Baby. how can I 

have a Baby when I often feel so

isolated

and I can't just live my normal life?"

what WAS my "normal life"?

will there even BE a "normal life" to go back to?

sometimes it doesn't feel like it.

especially because of the biggest looming fear,

the realest, darkest fear,

that nests, that puts down roots,

both within me and without.

the shitshow that is

FIVE: This Fucking World.

I can't think about

This Fucking World

without feeling

afraid

disbelieving

hopeless

trapped

enraged

disgusted

disappointed

arrested

because in some ways, everything feels the same;

everything feels like it's always been

a bunch of bullshit, a charade,

a lot of rich people laughing at our expense.

but lately it's been worse than that,

it's been looking sicker, more poisonous,

and the future feels like

a white flag in tatters,

and falling-down towers of

a corporatized, authoritarian,

washed-out, Mad Max wasteland of civilization.

sometimes it feels like

the end, the ruin,

isn't in the future but in the present:

the breaking and the dying,

the corrupting and the debasing,

the denial and the rupture;

the brain-dead, soul-sick stomping of

Proud Boy boots and the swinging of

simian-alien Q Anon flat-earth fists;

the death-chant of gleeful and

venomous dogma,

the rousing chorus of

one last victory song of the Patriot Front.

it feels like now is the hour

of ruining, of losing,

and the future...

the future is nothing.

the future is an endless stretch of

parched, scorched desert flats

full of biting whirlwinds and

invisible, shimmering fires.

the future is bodies sprawled out

naked in the dust,

fists grasping plastic bottles,

guns and gold and

old Property Deeds,

faces frozen and

mouths mangled in

silent screams of anguish,

anger, terror, pleading;

bodies that died wanting

for things they needed like

shade and water,

kinship and kindness.

what kind of world is this,

what kind of future can there be,

what kind of life

for a Baby?

a Baby feels like a chance, 

an act of hope;

but what hope is there to give

this Baby, who is not in fact

a chance or an act,

but a Baby

and, eventually, a Person?

my heart breaks at the thought of

walking a Baby out into this

hellish place and uncovering its

little eyes and saying,

"welcome."

my heart aches at the thought of 

looking this eventual Person in the face and

trying to explain why

this is what they got.

I want you, Baby, but will you want this?

I want you, Baby, but I didn't want this.

I feel like I will lose something

no matter what I choose and

like every choice comes with

a predestined apology.

I will be sad and sorry, Baby,

if you aren't born,

and I will be sad and sorry, still,

if you are.