Happy Mother's Day No More

My womb remains barren by choice. 

No baby has carved their way out of me - and it likely won’t in this lifetime. 

I know nothing of what it’s like to love in the primal way mothers do. 

I know nothing of what it’s like to have a piece of my body and soul leave my self and walk along the earth, an extension of me and yet their own being themselves. 

I know nothing of what it is like to have my skin stretched thin from a growing body within, to have my body change radically for the sake of creating a new one. 

I know none of these things - 

But I do know what it is like to earn a child’s respect whose body didn’t come from mine. 

I do know what it’s like to feel jealous towards an innocent child for taking time away from my partner, but her parent. 

I do know what it’s like to step in front of her instinctually as we cross the street. 

I do know what it’s like to snarl my teeth reflexively learning another child hurt her feelings. 

I do know what it’s like to choose a child that isn’t mine. 

I do know what it’s like to feel the delight of being called a bonus mom. 

To love her with an effort formed from grit rather than DNA. 

I do know what it’s like to have that love ripped from me not by the child, but by her broken and hurt parent. 

I know nothing of a mother’s love from my womb space, 

But I do know when I wake up often in a sweat of panic, tears flooding down my face from the nightmares reminding me that an extension of my body may not walk this earth away from me, 

but I do know a part of my soul does. A part of my soul I am glad to have given freely to her, gutted to know we may not reunite again.