I once heard a dreadful story about how
Wombs
cradle a soul
that will crawl
between your thighs,
with a wailing sound,
and will slowly consume
parts of you.

Your life. Your will. Your desire. You.

I heard how
Wombs
can embrace the
moon and
make you bleed
and thousands, thousands of bleeding girls
died
in confinement,
confined because
every drop of blood that counts
might soil the earth, the air, and the purest souls.

I heard how
Wombs
can grow flesh
that will eat you alive
from the inside as they
slowly, slowly
spell deaths
the way they spell lives.

I heard a daunting story of
how Wombs
that is one body
is owned by many,
a sacred vessel of life, guilt, and glory,
lying at the intersection
of gazes, judgments, and laws.
And the fruitless hopefuls are nothing but failures
as the pleas of the rightful voices
left as an echo,
eroded by the relentless tides
of tradition, expectation, and control.

And today, today
Just like another day
another month
I learned how
I have a
Womb
inside
me
breathing

and oh boy, oh boy,

how I am horrified
to death.

–o–

This poem is about wombs, from the perspective of a woman who wishes to be child-free. It also explores issues such as the negative perception of menstruation that kills many women in the world, the high number of cervical cancer fatalities and how wombs are seen as common goods – justified by religions and traditions worldwide.