I’m somewhere on the wave of a contraction feeling its energy burst, its necessary need, its primal force.

I’m with my mother in law, her tiny form creating another, her small arms cradling, her small mouth saying ‘he has a heavy head.’ 

And I’m gulping air into my own tiny lungs, fresh into the world, carrying my mother’s chemicals, her genes, her ways, 

on and on and on.

I’m somewhere not far from where I am now, lying  skin to skin. And where my abdomen used to be, lilies bloomed.

I bled therefore I am.