Forever Unborn

I look down and wonder "Why me?" I put my hand on my still slightly swollen stomach out of habit, knowing that each passing day only flattens it more. I probe for even the slightest sign of life, of movement. All I want is a kick, a hiccup, the faint heartbeat; there is nothing. All I can feel is the physical and mental pain that I have now. I can feel life draining slowly out of me, both my own and what would have been my child's. I can feel it lessen more with each morning, each night, and I hate my body for betraying us like this.
I can't help thinking about what could have been. I could have had a child. A boy to play sports with, to wrestle around with, or perhaps a girl, whose hair I could have braided and taught that she could do anything a boy could. My child for an unknown moment, now my angel forever. I know that I still love you, just as strongly as if you were alive. You are forever unborn, but never forgotten.

I touch my stomach again, still desperately, illogically, hoping to somehow feel the marks of a child. A foot, a hand, or just the incontrovertable form of a baby growing. Still, I can't feel anything but the lonely beating of my own heart. I start to shed bitter tears at being left alone like this, by a cruel trick of nature. I can't fathom any other love now, and don't want the life that comes with that.

Anger takes over then, and I scream. It all rushes out of me, until I grow so hoarse that all I can do is cry silently. I collapse, deflated of the emotions that kept me animated, defeated to the floor. I curl up on myself, as if by assuming the same position my child was in, that I can somehow stop myself from coming to the brutal realization: My child is dead. I lost my child to a miscarriage.

I fall asleep there on the floor, into a cruelly dream filled sleep. I am crying still, softly, when I finally wake up on the cold wood of the floor. I get up and continue life, feeling all the while that I'm just slipping further away from everything around me. My ability to feel drained itself away, just like my baby's life. My baby, who will remain forever unborn.