Dear baby,
I held you—
Not with my arms
But with my hand.
You did not cry.
I did.
My seahorse baby,
I am sorry
your eyes did not form
your body was not warm—
I am sorry
your heart worked only in me
and that it stopped
only when he made you come
out of me.
Raw, mauve, and numb—
limbs replaced by a tiny tail.
you shall now stay silent
like the first time I saw you.
I often dream of you—
what you may have been:
Caramel curly hair, olive-colored eyes,
Half-freckled face, almond skin,
and lingering lashes.
Scribbles with orange markers,
hoarse infinite laughs along a
baby’s breath garden and early night
readings of other planet ventures.
You are gone
and yet
you never arrived.
You shall remain
nameless
Not because I don’t want to call out your name—
But because you never got one.
***
Written by Daniela P Camejo Sanchez
Illustrated by Afternoon Delight
Daniela is a Venezuelan writer and her work focuses on rebellion, womanhood, disease, and more. Her work is soon to be featured in The Ethel Zine, Olney Magazine, Pastel Serenity, New York Quarterly, and more. You may find her on Twitter as @danielapcamejo
The subject matter of Daniela’s work, for many, can occupy feelings of shame or inadequacy. The loss of a pregnancy is a private and personal experience, and can be extremely difficult to talk about due to the emotional toll of the grief that accompanies loss. Many individuals feel pressure or expectation to keep their grief hidden, in part due to societal branding of these subjects as taboo.
Talking about infertility and miscarriage, if you feel comfortable to, serves to deconstruct common misconceptions and ’normalise’ experiences through the reassurance that if you’ve experienced it, you aren’t alone.
Resources: If you are affected by the themes of this post, you can visit https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk for information, or this page on their website for personal stories, videos and poems by people who have been affected by pregnancy loss.