Tag: pregnancy

26 weeks // Ashley Howell Bunn

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Image: Fara

26 weeks

BY ASHLEY HOWELL BUNN

we will see it all
she whispers
as she pushes into my side
pressing flesh between fingers and wand
everything looks great

your femur appears from
the watery ink

Pause
                         click

prints an image for us to hold

how’s the pressure
I can’t decide if she means on my belly
or in my heart
as the air I breathe moves to your blood
you emerge sideways
ghostlike from my bloody shore

here’s the aortic arch
she speaks to her student
who I have allowed in the room
to view all that I hold inside

look at those ovaries, beautiful
I see only shadows
sunken faces
then your profile:,
elf-like, angelic 
sagittal view
split in half

like when you arrived
like every moment since 
split between two selves

the wand moves again 
and you sink 
into black water

Ashley Howell Bunn (she/they) completed her MFA in poetry through Regis University and holds a MA in Literature from Northwestern University. Their work has appeared in many places both in print and online. Their first chapbook, in coming light, was published in 2022 by Middle Creek Publishing and their second chapbook, Living Amends—coauthored with Alexander Shalom Joseph, is forthcoming through Galileo Press . Their work has been supported by Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and Sundress Publications. She is an adjunct instructor of English at the Community College of Denver and the Youth Program Coordinator at Lighthouse Writers Workshop. She is a certified somatic coach and yoga guide, and she offers somatic writing workshops in-person and virtually. When she isn’t writing, she is practicing yoga, running in the sunshine, playing with her kids, or daydreaming and staring off into space. 

Diaries of a Lost Pregnancy – Amanda E.K.

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Photo by Hello I’m Nik 🎞

 

Diaries of a Lost Pregnancy

5.18.17

Yes, Doctor, I will take a pregnancy test. I’ve been nauseous since last Thursday.

I’m in pain. I’m three days late.

5.24.17

Pelvic ultrasound to try and figure out this pain. Still haven’t heard back from the doctor.

5.30.17

I bought a stick on my way home from work. Called doctor again and they still won’t release my results. This all feels a bit dystopian and surreal.

A little too Twin Peaks: The Return.

My pain is invalidated by the people who can help me.

I’ve been nauseous and I’m never nauseous and my boobs hurt as though gripped in a vice.

Oh kill this thing inside me if it does indeed exist! 

Drinking wine and eating Twinkies that I bought along with the store brand stick. 

My husband is out of the country. I’m scared and alone.

5.31.17 

6:30 am: 

The test is positive

11:59 pm:

I wonder if it would be a boy or a girl. I stretch my face in the mirror, imagining the combination of our features. Not that I want it. It’s only thought-play.

I don’t go to bed. I go for a walk after dark, to Observatory Park, walking in shadows, spinning on playground spinners, stumbling up a tree, swinging as high as I can go for as long as Radiohead’s “Ful Stop” plays on headphones.

I need to be higher, or lower, and since I don’t have any digging tools, up I go.

Sometimes the traffic outside my window sounds like music.

I scheduled an abortion outside an elementary school.

6.1.17

Started miscarrying during my preschool students’ graduation.

Started crying in front of the families, saying how much their children have meant to me. Several moms teared up and gave me hugs. 

My student Mariah asked me: Ms. Amanda, why are you crying? Me: I have a tummy ache. 

Crying after coming back from the bathroom, finding blood, not knowing what was happening to my body, my co-teacher asking if I’m okay and I shake my head, dissolve into tears.

I translated a message into Arabic for Elyas’s mom about how he’s been one of my favorite students and I’ll miss him. She teared up and hugged me and I felt such love for her. Translated a message into Spanish for Ricardo’s mom. I will miss the daily diversity of being a classroom teacher.

I will miss my beautiful little family.

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Amanda E.K. is the editor-in-chief of Denver’s Suspect Press. She’s also a writing instructor and a longstanding member of the Knife Brothers writing group. Her work has been featured on the Denver Orbit podcast and on Mortified Live. She has work in Suspect Press, Birdy, Jersey Devil Press, the 2018 Punch Drunk Press Poetry anthology, and Green Briar Review. She’s currently working on a memoir about her sexual development while growing up in evangelical purity culture, and she is co-writing a television series. FB: /AmandaEK  Twitter: @AmandaEKwriter  Insta: @amanda.ek.writer