This Is Only the Beginning

by Christen Lee


Dim lights frame the hospital room.
My breath catches on the hard linoleum
as a crushing wave encircles me,
squeezes the baby.

It’s sterile, this room with metal carts
gloves and gowns
and my arm, it bites with needles
as another tube fills deep red

my red blood
my clenched fist
my splayed body on display
as the nurses point and probe
and announce,
“It’s time.”

“Push!”
The nurses bellow
as I grit my teeth and my body sinks
under a tsunami.
I surface for words,
“How’s the baby?”

A calm hand mops my brow,
“You’ve got this.”
I tremble,
“No, no, I can’t…”
A soft voice,
“The baby’s almost here.”

Daylight strikes
the room now blinding,
searing like knives.
“A head! Black hair!”

I writhe and I gnash, I squall and I slump
like a towel wrung dry.
Chips of ice feed my parched tongue.

“Just one more push!”
So I gasp, bear down,
impound my insides like sheet metal

I weep and I curse
and I promise you the whole world.
Yes, things will get better, just wait—
some stories have brutal beginnings.

I howl and I bleed,
rip hidden seams
and pour my life force into you,
my son.
 
You,
whom I will forever
push toward life.

You,
whom I will forever
pull toward love.


* * * * *

Christen Lee is a family nurse practitioner in Cleveland, Ohio. Her writing has been featured in the Literary Cleveland’s Voices from the Edge Anthology, Rue Scribe, The Write Launch, Aurora, Humans of the World Blog, Sad Girls Club, 2022 New Generation Beats Anthology, Wingless Dreamer and is forthcoming in The Voices of Real 7 Compilation.