red white & pink all over by E.M. Lark
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto for Pexels
TW: Discussion of pregnancy, abortion and Roe v. Wade; anxiety and paranoia
When I was twenty-one, I thought I might have gotten pregnant. I don’t know if I actually was, if that was possible, if senior year stress was enough to psychosomatically fuck me over. There are other explanations, I’m positive. But it didn’t stop the fear.
– it probably wasn’t true
It’s just my mind again
It’s just playing tricks
You’re fine
You’re fine
You’re fine
I remember obsessively buying pregnancy tests. I remember the spiral that I took myself down, one after the other after the other, hoarding negative pregnancy tests in my drawers to remind myself I did it. It was the only way to stay afloat.
google: homemade pregnancy test
signs of early pregnancy
am i pregnant or am i just stressed
amazon: clearblue pregnancy test, 3pk
would you like to order again?
“do i have a choice?”
I remember trying to recite what I would tell my mom. I remember the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. I remember looking up appointments for Planned Parenthood – because that was the only choice. I couldn’t – can’t – raise a child.
did you ever tell him?
no.
why not?
i don’t know. it doesn’t matter anymore.
it clearly still does.
it’s for the best.
It happened again when I was twenty-three. Intimacy tends to trigger a fear that I scarcely knew I had before the fall. And so back down the spiral I went. Staring at myself in my family’s guest bathroom, hidden test in hand, I wondered if I would ever feel okay.
Don’t go out
You won’t get hurt that way
But what if–
There’s a pandemic
Doesn’t matter
Safer safer safer–
Going back across the country made me feel safer. Braver. If my world fell apart, I had a way through. A way to quiet the voice, a way to close the gap that I couldn’t otherwise fill. I was lonely and scared and violently unprepared but at least I was safe.
xxx
(When I was younger, I’d known people who had gotten abortions. It shattered my whole perspective from a Catholic’s stained glass view. Unsure if I thought much of it either way – but I know what other people thought, and I kept my head down.
in the name of the father
the son
and the holy spirit, this Christmas special
shouldn’t be about anti-abortion.
Shame was a language I’d learned well. Espoused from my devout lips, it was the only way to heaven I knew. But these were people I knew. That I loved and trusted, and this would never ever make any of them a bad person.
So why would anyone else be?
Safer.
I felt safer
Knowing if I needed to
People would still love me.
I do not need a god who does not love me.)
xxx
I am on the verge of twenty-six. The country is again on the verge of destroying human rights. We have to go through this same shit over and over and over, because leaders obsess over their own power more than I ever could my own fear. I know that much.
I remember
I remember
I remember.
headline:
LEAKED DRAFT REVEALS SCOTUS PLANS TO OVERTURN ROE VS. WADE
google: how to help overturn the overturn
the four types of trauma responses
why do i obsess over everything
more resources for supporting abortion rights
unsent message:
Mom, I’m scared. They’re coming for everyone –
Here’s a link to donate to Texas funds
There’s a protest out in the city.
Mom, I meant it when I said I don’t want kids.
I can’t.
Mom I’m so fucking scared
Mom, were you scared to have kids?
E.M. Lark
E.M. Lark (they/them) is a nonbinary writer/book reviewer/someone trying their best, currently based in NYC. Book reviews found with Defunkt Magazine, recent words in Roi Fainéant Press, and with Rockford New Words 2022. MFA in Playwriting, 2021.
For help with the issues discussed in this piece:
National Network of Abortion Funds