Baby R

by Natalie Worrell

 

praise stings my ears like a gymnasium full of applause

I don’t deserve.

When I picture you, you’re swimming through my dreamy sky, not drowning in a toilet.

When I dream of you, I’m inhaling your sweetness and patting your diapered bottom.

I am a tangle of weeds: sharp thorns overtake the void.

I’m chained to my decision, a million kinks swelling

around the burden,

wringing up what never should have been.

The façade laughs at jokes nods to neighbors

makes coffee at work

toasts victories with friends.

But leaks spring, breaching the concrete smile, bulging

my makeshift dam.

don’t ask me how we can love the things we never had.

don’t ask me why I cry tears

I don’t deserve.

has it come together for you yet?

love is a blanket on a sweltering day,

I want to rip it apart and tear the clothes from my body.

_________________________

Natalie Worrell is a single mother of two kids and also a corporate warrior princess. She supports a Department of Defense contract for the Government . . . “so I don’t get to be creative as often as I’d like.”

 

Her background includes a degree in Communications, a Master’s in Project Management, and a Master’s in Writing. She’s been published all over the place, but that was years ago . . . — “since I’m now stuck in a technical realm. Hope you enjoy my poem, sometimes I am surprised at the thoughts that come out of my head.”