Collected Children

By Melissa M. Sharp

Despondency and disparity,

Chew on the foetus of my child, bound in

Ash and Shroud.

I threw it up one morning,

When the clocks went back,

Casting my miserable hour

Twice fold.

Time laughs in my mockery and foolishness,

Telling me it thinks my misery is delicious!

Wedding myself to the air of my creativity, 

Where men in ghoulish suits sell babies.

Unwanted and uncollected.

Their little faces morphed perpetually in a peculiar fashion,

Noses squashed, and cheeks hollowed from

Neglect.

This is where seeking attention is a matter of choice

A mother has no time to commit to.

Until I sold my wages, few and small,

For the likes of a child, my mother swore I would always have.

Her ovaries constantly spasmed,

Frantically delirious on the familiar scent of a memory –

Where babies were ideal

And dared not ponder on the women they become.

But I will tell you this,

Wombs are not stable enough.

Not when the organs whisper secrets and gossip

Echoing through the pipes of veins,

Casting judgment on a foreign foetus.

Until it is regurgitated out,

Splatting onto a pavement,

The gore of an almost life landing in splotches on shiny shoes,

The shoes of the men in ghoulish suits who sell babies

Unwanted and uncollected.

but never allowed to keep.

By Melissa M. Sharp