Coming

   Don't be afraid, Mom. I won't take up too much of your time. Sure, it'll hurt. But that will pass. And you'll be glad when it's over. You won't forget. You might if it didn't hurt. Pain has a way of becoming engraved in one's memory. It hurts me too, in case you didn't know. I'm scared too. But I don't understand what you're thinking. You press your hands on the walls of my world, palpating them to feel me move, afraid when I lie too still, sleeping, scared that I am gone.

   I'm here. I feel. I dream. I breathe. I'll come. Things will be different when I come. They won't matter anymore. Your old, cramped room. You think you can't go back there. But it won't matter once I come. I'll be tiny enough for you to take there. You'll be smaller too. The whole world will have shrunk. For a while we'll be enough, just the two of us. You won't think of him anymore. Why he never showed up. Why he never comes around anymore. Why he never calls. Why he never leaves flowers on your doorstep. Wildflowers. The smell of crushed grass. The juices on your clothes. That's all gone. A lot of things are gone. I'm not. I've stayed. I'll stay on. I'll come out of you. I came out of him too, but that doesn't matter anymore. He'll be excised, in a way. From you. And I'll have come. And stayed. It'll work. From now on. And you'll tell everyone when they ask, "Whose is he?" "Mine," you'll say.

   That's the way it's going to be at first. Then it'll change again. I'll be leaving. Becoming my own person. And you'll be hurt again. But don't worry. Everything changes. The pain goes away. Its edges wear off. And things work out. Don't listen to the whispers behind your back: "She's on her own." You're not on your own. I'm here.

   Don't worry. It'll work out. Somehow. I'm here. I feel. I dream. I breathe. I'm coming.

-- from You Do Understand by Andrej Blatnik