SmokeLong Quarterly

TW: miscarriage

I’m writing because your name showed up in my contact list and I thought I’d say

hello. I’m writing from my bathroom piled high with moving boxes. After a year of trying, the pregnancy test came back positive.

hello. I’m writing because my superstitious upbringing taught me sins require forgiveness from a priest and I want to fix my marriage. I drop coins into the downtown Zoltar machine, tell him I’m worried god has it out for me. I ask how I will know when I’ve paid the price of my infidelity. He answers: THE BEST PLACE TO FIND A HELPING HAND IS AT THE END OF YOUR ARM.

hello. I’m writing after five years of silence. Yesterday, my affair emailed me to say hello and remind me it was still floating in the periphery. I can’t bring myself to write fuck off, so I write a five-paragraph sermon instead: I am in affair-recovery. My husband deserves better. I can’t give you what you want. Please leave me alone (also how are you?).  I am certain I will feel better. I check every two hours for a reply.

hello. I’m writing because your name showed up in my contact list and I thought I’d say

hello. I’m writing pregnant in a Costco bathroom. I started bleeding in the fruit aisle between bananas, persimmons, watermelon—it hasn’t stopped.

hello. I’m writing from my therapist’s office surrounded by mood lighting. I tell her my sins, try to decide what I’ll do when my daughter learns I know how to pick a lock, lift a window, and lie. She tells me this information can be shared on a need-to-know-basis. I say everyone needs-to-know so my daughter doesn’t turn out like me.

hello. I’m writing from three booths back at the coffee shop I visit every Saturday. One time I took off my wedding ring here and pretended I was single. I didn’t think of god or punishment. I only thought of how monarchs live for only a few weeks after emerging from their cocoon; how even in the face of an early death they unfurl their stained-glass wings and throw themselves into the unforgiving wind.

hello. I’m writing because your name showed up in my contact list and I thought I’d say

hello. I’m writing from the ER. It is small and cramped and there’s a metal rod in my uterus. I tell them my sins. They tell me it’s too early in my pregnancy to see anything. The next day I hold a red-yolk clot on my fingertips in the shower then flush it down the toilet.

hello. I always thought my shame would be enough penance, that if I told everyone, I could speak the memories right out of my body. Now I watch a stranger draw blood from my veins into tiny vials on a silver tray. She wants to make sure my body is back to normal. I say nothing of my sins but tell her to take as much blood as she needs. She frowns, checks the computer, and asks if I’m still taking my medication.

hello. I’m writing from the airport. Google says pregnancy hormones can stay in your body for up to six weeks after miscarriage. I spend twenty minutes crying while a woman eats her sandwich and watches me. I consider telling her my sins, but the bleeding stopped last Thursday and my plane has already started boarding.