rebirth # 7

The sprouting of a human life is painful and messy and bloody and knocking on the door of death like all the nurses running to the room to check on mama's heart beat when she almost stops breathing. 

Is this why rebirthing ourselves in our own image hurts so much too?

I had a life before the pandemic that promised me         relevance

and I realized I didn't want a life of being picked apart by talking heads like doctors inside the wombs of maternal units. 

My rebirth is lonely like cactus in the desert. I wanted to be healing and of water, something only tender wonder-filled souls could find. 

- Amanda Alcántara, March 2021

Echinopsis pachanoi via Wikimedia Commons.