The first time I felt it, I knew it was old as ancestry: the feeling some women chase with words; some feel out the flesh of their mouths or stomach with moans and growls you would've thought was warfare. The childconceived of heartache, our evidence of loving.
I was with child before I ever lay with a man-an ill-mannered girl who made a language of feeling. She rattled my insides, making songs of heartache and lonely. I carried her for years- thought I got rid of her with words fishing round like a hook.
Words crashed through my mouth like I was a master rapper, cursing him and his mothers and his house and his good-for-nothing-aaahhh. She kicked and burped and gassed like any almost-baby, ready to taste air for herself.
I held her as long as I could, calling on her again and again, willing her to life: mama's healing baby. She took all my hurt and made it dance before me. Her cry, my own.
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