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by Heather Carnaghan
My heart has lodged itself deep in my stomach, wreaking havoc on other vital organs. My throat is full, choked by words I cannot find and a howl I cannot let escape. Grief is clawing at my soul A fierce and frightening beast that haunts my dreams and lurks in the shadows of every waking moment. Fear surrounds me, filling places it never touched before, of returning to life of mothering as a ghost, of all the “nevers” and “withouts”.
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by Heather Carnaghan
A hole so vast and so deep that the dropped stone never makes the telltale “thunk” as it collides with earth. An emptiness, infinite like space. expanding, ever larger the longer it exists. It sucks the air from my lungs and swallows every possibility. Into the blackness go her lips and her eyes her kisses and the things she would see her tiny fingers and all they might have held her perfect feet and all of the places we should have gone together. by Heather Carnaghan
The day you were born still and silent my heart was shattered into fragments so sharp that they pierced through my whole life and opened wounds that will never heal. I held your tiny hand and stroked your chubby cheeks. they grew cold as my own warmth seeped out of you and the corpse color crept over your perfect toes. by Heather Carnaghan
The silence of stillbirth doesn’t tiptoe in or creep quietly, camouflaged, considerate. It roars and wails and fills the space stealthily, greedily, so there is no air left to breathe. by Heather Carnaghan
Crumpled tissues sit bedside, wet with twenty seven hours of sweat and tears so salty they’ve left crystalline tracks on my cheeks The glasses I’d never before removed for fear of missing a moment are strewn, one leg splayed their lenses fogged with bloody fingerprints and organic remnants of the moment I wished I had been blind to. I scan the room, wild eyed, trying to find the source of that horrible noise. It assaults my ears and pastes a look of horror on my husbands ragged face. A wail so deep and terrible that it hails from a primitive part of the psyche that has no words for this pain. The audience stands, hesitantly at first, wringing their hands and covering their mouths as they realize what I am searching for. The sorrowful ovation faces me and at last the source is clear. by Heather Carnaghan
My car flew dangerously around the bend as I fled my cookie cutter neighborhood where wildlife has been neatly replaced by concrete and a community pool. She dove into the road, as unexpected as my frenzied midnight journey. Tires screeched, tattooing the fresh tar, but she sat, still and stoic, staring with holographic eyes, unafraid. I stared back, distractedly thinking how unlike a real fox the toys I’d bought for Charlotte were. She was beautiful, fiercely so, like loving her might rip the heart right out of your chest. Her fiery tail flicked impatiently as she bored with our encounter and let me pass. I didn’t recognize the gift that she left me: a permanent symbol of a life that wouldn’t last. by Heather Carnaghan
She stopped kicking. Just like that her elbows and knees paused their nine month assault on my organs. I drank honey to coax her to dance and ice water, was that a shiver...? My swollen belly was leaden, heavy with the death my heart made me blind to see. I drove on with hope, a phone, and three car seats in the back seat of my tiny Hyundai Accent. by Heather Carnaghan
“It’s just a heartbeat scan” I told him and my words turned his car around. They echoed through the next two months and left him forever wondering if her heart would still be beating if he’d continued south on 95. by Heather Carnaghan
Love is a strong word for a binder but this binder was a work of art a type A educator’s titillating dream. Deliciously color coded, it held coveted secrets to my daily doings learned over thirteen years of attendance and parent conferences, of messy inquiry and messier class pets. That binder held in it the blueprint for a substitute, that stranger to my surrogate children, to assume my teacher identity fully and competently for an entire quarter, (A lifetime to an 8th grader). It was just enough time for me to grow a wriggling newborn into a rolling three month old. I was ready for her. by Heather Carnaghan
I like Lucy. Charlie Brown’s friend, is it? They’re not friends, But anyway. It’s short like Jack and Sam’s. Biff is short. We’re not naming her Biff. Aoife? It’s Irish like you and smooth like Kerrygold. “Ee-fah”? That’s a life sentence, not a name. No one can say Aoife. Amelia is… ...the air hostess? The pilot, you dolt! A strong namesake. A Doctor Who companion, really. What else is on that list? Charlotte. C-h-a-r-l-o-t-t-e ? Yeah. Charlotte. Jack, Sam, and Charlotte. Well? Charlotte. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
August 2018
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