Expiration Date

EXPIRATION DATE

When I was a young girl, I wanted so badly to be a mother.

I wrote names in a yellow notebook and sighed over dumpling cheeks and

Thunder thighs of little ones, giggles escaping their lips.

I bought baby dresses from Woolco and put them on my purple teddy bear.

In my twenties and then my thirties, I realized it was too risky for me-

I had courage to see that generational trauma had loosened my grip on these dreams.

The fear of abusing my child or dimming the bright lights in her beautiful eyes,

And the worries of schizophrenia running in families – no, I couldn’t bear it.

Before I turned 41, firmly set in the company of the never-marrieds,

I released that hope and opened the door called caregiving for my mother-

The unbelievable joke of Alzheimer’s on top of Schizophrenia not lost on me.

My father’s sudden passing changed her overnight, and she was no longer able.

For a moment after I married at 42, the baby dreams came bounding back,

He was willing but I saw that date on my carton of fears- it had not yet expired.

Said “God Willing,” but quietly started adhering to 48 months of birth control.

Eventually old menopause sunk the boat that had slowly drifted away from shore.

I’d believed my expiration date had come, I could no longer fulfill my mother’s dreams

Of holding her long awaited grandbabies that she’d pestered me for since I was 13.

I’m struck by the realization that babies wasn’t really my dream, but it was always the hope

For love- and there’s never an end date there, and so with that, I take a step forward.

TMD 4/16/24

30-day poems with @beausia