my body is a love letter to itself

“My body is a love letter to itself.”

I wrote that note in my phone a couple weeks ago. It was simply one of those phrases that popped into my head and I thought I would mull it over until it grew into a full-fledged poem. But while I can’t get this line out of my head, there is something else that’s been rattling around for the past few days:

“Ovarian failure.”

Ovarian failure.

Ovarian death.

Death.

Not viable.

No more.

No more.

Never to have a piece of me

With someone else

Women are born with all the eggs they will ever have.

We don’t make more.

(Sperm takes 90 days to make, did you know? From beginning to end)

End.

End of potential.

“Belly full of potential.”

I wrote that once—

In a previous post.

About this.

Pregnancy,

Future,

Wanting kids

(maybe? Someday? No day. Never.)

I feel… less.

Less woman.

Less future. Less hope.

I didn’t even know if it was something I wanted, but now

I can’t.

“My body is a love letter to itself.”

Scars hug and skin whispers

But nothing flows.

Making love is literally a

Labor

Pain.

I am menopausal.

I am going gray.

I have hot flashes and am at increased risk for osteoporosis.

My ovaries are dead.

I am 24.

I

Made

It

To

Fucking

24

And

Now

Even

Fucking

Is

Hard.

And it will never be productive.

There is a me and a you

And maybe I will fade…

Maybe you

Will create.

I know this is partially

Biology.

The need to see your progeny

Continue

Grow

Flourish.

But now I am on the verge of tears in a coffee shop,

Because a piece of me I didn’t even think I wanted was sacrificed to save the rest of me.

And I can’t help but feel like maybe it’s a symbol, a metaphor, a bad omen about my own future—

And every time someone talks about kids or I go to work or I see a baby smile I just want to cry because I’m too young to have to deal with this

And I wrote before that this would be easier,

That it would be EASIER to have my choice taken away from me but it isn’t easy.

It isn’t easy.

And before I felt a sort of pity for other women who had their sacred-life-giving-selves ravaged by drugs and rays and surgery but now

I get it.

There are possibilities

Lost.

“My body is a love letter to itself.”

But only unto itself.