There is no heartbeat, Mrs Stirling.
I lost a baby two years ago. At 8.5 weeks after seeing her heart beat. I haven't been able to talk about it, but I can write about it. My throat cracks and splinters when I begin to form a thought or word or phrase. I took such great care when pregnant that I think I overheated.
My husband grieves with friends and booze and long, arduous bike rides.
I grieve like a stone. Relentless, petrifying and depersonalized.
But it is so personal, you know, this loss. Must have been something I did or didn't do. I wasn't able to hold my child in my womb for long enough. She gave up half way to heaven and didn't look back.
Her name is written in the night. Her face is imagined by her mother.
Her fingers not to be held. Skin as soft as honey oil never to be reckoned with or kissed by an inappropriate lad.
Grief is heavy. Not tweed-heavy but shackle heavy. The stench of summer makes me retch.
I am lost amongst the dusty rebels.
Lacklustre and heartsick.
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Author's Note
I miscarried in 2013 and because it was so early on I think people felt that it didn't hurt as much. I am here to tell you that it did and it does.
However, Georgiana Roslyn Diana Stirling was born on 9th February, 2015, happy and healthy and very loved.
Perhaps we know too much now, too soon and too concretely. Brave recollection.
"I think I overheated." Well made.
"...not tweed-heavy but shackle heavy." Your title alone is heartbreaking. *
I adore this piece and also the author's note. I like what it admits and that it doesn't elide those details other miss. I once read a poem in which the poet gives forth a description of a child she never had, and it was the first time in reading over years and years poetry almost exclusively that I'd seen something like it attempted and then I wondered why something like it had not been attempted or had I missed seeing something like it so far? *