HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DARIUS

Darius, when you were born
the pains just kept coming
as you tried to push past pelvic bones
that would not move
I was a mother struggling
you, a son trying to arrive
unharmed

I wanted you
but not like a woman who planned
to be pregnant--
I wanted you like a mother
wants to protect her child
because he is in danger,
because sometimes death
watches as a child is born
because you were on the brink
and I was, the doctor said,
"incompetent" in my
pushing, my pelvis bones
that would not budge

For years that word dogged
me, invaded my dreams
pushed me to try to save you
from me, from my inability
to be what you needed
in a parent, a mom
someone who's love 
is supposed to propel you
into a future

I wanted you
to survive my brand of crazy
your own planned trips to fool's hill
the tendency to choose
the wrong partners
and the wrong path
we have these things
in common

I want you
to be the man in your own dreams
to travel the world the way you 
told me you would when you were
10 and not yet disappointed
in the way the world works
I want you to love like
you've never had your heart
broken, like the woman you
married was not broken
and therefore able to 
laugh at your jokes
and dance with you
well into the night

I want you to carry
your burdens light, to 
hand them over to someone
more competent than you
to choose life when death
tries to forget the price
you've paid to survive

I love you
but these are not merely
the words of a woman who struggled
to bring you into the world, whose body
could not do the "natural" thing
who wonders what would have
happened to her own soul
had you not been
born

These words: I love you--
are the words of a woman
who admires you, who knows
she had only to breathe
and push and relax under
the anesthesia as your
spirit embraced this
world beyond amniotic
fluid and prayers
I am your mother
for that
I give
thanks

© Valerie Bridgeman
May 22, 2013