While I remember Theo,
just be.
Quiet.
Here.
Still.
But please don’t share.
Don’t share your story of miscarriages.
Don’t share your belief God needed an angel.
Don’t share how his stillbirth was fated to be.
My longing to hold him and hear his tiny breaths
is a hurt I carry on my own.
My wails in the shower, softened only by the
beating water on my body, leave me broken and
I crumble from the finality of hearing, “He doesn’t have a heartbeat.”
You hand me your death stories like the newborn I will never hold,
expecting me to ooh and ahh over your pain while I break me into a million small pieces, shattered and irreparable, scattered across the floor,
your “I understand” platitudes, the proverbial piece of straw.
While I grieve Theo,
please,
just be.
Kim Kile is a native of Indiana who spends her time jotting down lines of poetry that come to her while she’s driving or washing her hair. When she’s not working, writing, or reading, she is a doctoral student at IUPUI in the American Studies program with a focus on using bibliotherapy to help children and young adults overcome traumatic events in their lives by writing poetry or reading books. She surrounds herself with literature and her family, including her husband, four children, and two grandchildren, plus her five rescue animals. She finds inspiration for her writing in the everyday events of her life.