Week two~writers workshop Mar. 29th

I hope I'm not the only post!
its short, but....here's what i came up with:

Next to me, in front of me, behind me student sit slouching in the lecture hall. Everyone is engaged elsewhere, daydreaming.

I sit in the same room, emotionally separate: my dreams this day bend bellyward into your secret nest. I am next to you, in front of you, behind above below you. Yet still you are physically separate, a tiny seedling rooted in my fertile ground.

The professor's voice is lost in the space between he and I when I feel that first fluttering. Gently, almost imperceptibly, you brush against your placentian home, tickling my insides.

Pencils scratch, voices drone, papers rustle, but joy has exploded within my brain and I hear no sounds. I've been believing in you based on faith, and I experience this physical confirmation of your existence like a spiritual miracle. My silent smile spreads to my toes; you must be able to feel it.

I decided to go with a poem this one.

The Home-Stretch

My hands stretch
Across the landscape of my belly,
Taking comfort in the bump-bump reaction there.
I cry because of the pain
I read about and see
On the morning news - always about babies these days.
Abuse, disease
And the evil M-word: miscarriage.

My baby grows beneath my hand,
And I fear the day
Where my safety cannot guarentee his.
I want to lash out
At the imperfection and injustice of this.

But the empty nest syndrome
Is preceded by the empty womb,
And to let my child grow into himself
(Not a bump on my belly,
Not an extension of me),
I must cut the umbilical and
Let him grow,
Let him go.

My hands stretch
Across the landscape of my belly,
Taking a sad comfort in the bumps,
The reminding stretch-marks
That you left there.