Filled with fear and pain but love and hate
To raise it alone since he never agreed
A bump in her road, but she’d still succeed
And pray to God there’s no postpartum weight
Yesterday morning made her one month late
Always dreaded, but now she longed to bleed
An obvious fact she refused to concede —
A being of beauty she might create
Months go by, and she’s getting used to
The idea of not only one but two
Feeling light-headed, everything blurry
A stream of blood gushed from between her feet
A thick, black blood that marked finality
The greatest love stained the ground: biggest defeat
Poetry Thursdays is an initiative that highlights poems by medical students and physicians. If you are interested in contributing or would like to learn more, please contact our editors.
Pre-Medical Guest Writer
Rutgers University
Elo is a senior at Rutgers University in New Jersey. She is earning a major in biology and a minor in creative writing and aspires to attend medical school after she graduates. Elo is a teaching assistant in the physics department and co-founded the first undergraduate lifestyle medicine interest group in the region. She spends most of her spare time immersed in the arts including writing and painting. She writes because it's how she best expresses herself. It's not a hobby; it's a lifestyle.