You taught me this, by word and
omission;
never hunger, never feed; never
receive (as if anyone would
tender this).
But still, to perpetuate, perhaps through the splitting of me
in half,
replicate, not create.
I oughtn’t want it anyway; I am not
One who may aspire
to be Two.
[Additional thoughts to spark your writing: How do you choose solitude? When do you fear loneliness? How has trauma shaped your perception of the word?]
Disclosure: first instinct was “I Alone” by (live, Throwing Copper, circa nineteen-ninety-fuck-I’m-old). Disguised as a love song; commentary on being seduced into thinking answers lie outside ourselves. Yet, tender narration. “I’ll read to you, here, save your eyes.” That one still breaks me.
Raised with a twisted feminism, never taught basic skills: roast a chicken, scrub a toilet. Was supposed to simply know, but more, was intended for a life in which I paid others to do these things. “Be self-sufficient.” “It’s beneath you to do this.” For myself; certainly for a man.
When adults asked if I had a boyfriend (a thing finally called out), my tiny reply, age two: “Not till after medical school.” Not a goal; just what she taught me to say. In everything I was indoctrinated to want, no tulle-sparkle dreams; once, paging idly, Bride magazine, undulating concoctions of white that weren’t for me, not this girl, not this body, not this life.
Have children, of course. Devastated, she said, when exhausted from the badgering I’d sworn I simply didn’t want to.
I used to joke (though it was confirmed truth) that if I’d married a Jewish woman (a doctor) intent on reproducing, I’d have been far more acceptable than in marrying a man outside the faith, choosing to be childless. That I heeded the urge when it hit was evidence of her rightness, but when I became a stepmother thrice over, incredulity: you can’t want this? I did, oh how I did.
The sheer terror, the daily exhilaration of more-than-one, loving, being loved, mate, mother. “Fear is not the end of this.”
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