Sometimes at night, when the moon is high and lifted up and the streetlights on 4th and main have shone its last light ready to get some shuteye like the rest of the residents that line the block, lights slowly flickering until there is nothing but darkness, the unborn baby cries out to me, it cries out to me like Abel’s blood cried out to God.
And I sit and listen.
And I listen until every part of my being;
Is focused intently on the cry
Until my consciousness has lined up like the alignment of vast planets to produce weird occurrences on the earth
I listen. Until my stream of consciousness is no more divided amongst the humming of the refrigerator that moans downstairs begging to be filled and the soft murmurs of my sister professing her unrequited love for the boy she doesn’t even know.
I listen.
And I hear the sound of what could’ve been, and what if’s and if onlys
The unborn baby cries
Even though we have shut off its ability to express oneself, an expression it has never had since it was cut off from the face of the earth without a choice
It cries the song of what could’ve been
And what if’s and if onlys
I still myself and listen.
The unborn baby cries,
And it tells a story
And in the story the child is taken home and nurtured by its mother, anticipating the influx of breast milk to fill its empty belly, it grows up like you and me and finally gets to see its father but he is not behind bars, or laying dead in the street, another life claimed by the police, no he is sitting in a chair watching you as you imagine whole worlds and take over whole kingdoms in the midst of your living room floor. And you grow a little more, and you get to experience a first kiss, a bliss you wish you’ve never encountered because now the boy has taken your heart out of your chest to claim it as its own. And you let him. And when he breaks your heart
You cry a nile
And then move on because you know that more love is soon to come
And you get to wait for the day you get to say I do. You choose life each time
Because to you it is a treasure, it is a pearl. You do not know what’s it like to be the baby unborn.
You have planned plans and made memories and lived whole lives of other men and women who haven’t even bothered to live their life theirselves.
And then the story ends and I want to honor it, so I gather the collection of tears that have piled on my legs and I hold them in my hand and the unborn baby drinks.
And the rest of the night I hear cries of what could’ve been and what if’s and if onlys and I see the one flickering streetlight that poises itself on the corner of 4th and main and I lie down under its guidance.
