Poem: 13:57 A Stillborn Child
My wife and I started a non-profit organization called Hope's Healing Hearts which makes hand made hearts to Mothers who have had miscarriages, still born babies, and babies who died from SIDS or other means. After attending a few workshops and hearing the horrific experiences these women and families go through it stirred up memories of having been through a miscarriage (as a then husband) and having also had an older sister die from SIDS. I was later inspired to write about the excruciating pain many women experience.
13:57
Crouched before I grab at thy roots,
Veins swell with anguish and as blood trails drip, mixing with soil,
Breathless cries shake your promises,
Quivering voice of untamed lies,
Untruths born from tainted toil.
Tragedy lies prone beneath once beauty,
Uniquely written by a glimmering diamond edge,
Tears weep from this hollow womb,
While adoration is scraped raw by the hand of what was to be.
The horror...
The horror...
Sadness slips over the horizon,
Feeling my demons extinguished,
Suffocated by guilt and regret,
The last flicker of heaven fades to grey.
Convulsing as my soul is expunged from this last dying breath,
Forced to live in lifelessness,
Forced to hear screams and cries beneath my chest,
Lifting bloodshot eyes towards the dark spiral of 12 for meaning,
Staring now into an eternity of tears,
Wishing it could stop,
Wishing I could turn back from 13:57.