Willow Croft

To My Aborted Fetus

I was a child, myself,
but I knew enough
to choose
not to give you life
not to bring you into a world
that would abuse you like I was abused,
a place where I wouldn’t be able to feed you, or
where the food is poisoned
as is the water
and the air there is to breathe.
On top of all that
I might not have been able to keep you safe
at your schools
where every day of learning
means knowing how to barricade
the door to your classroom
and count up to a hundred while you
wait for the time
you’ll watch your classmates die
you’ll watch yourself die
from over a hundred bullets
from the guns that are loved more
than children
I promise you, it’s not a consolation
to know that
you might be used to death
that you could cope
because every day
you’d be forced to watch the world die
from greed and pollution and environmental destruction
and the animals who are extinct by the 
time you turn the page on them
in your picture book
it’s not a life I want to live
even with all my greed
but somehow I keep going
and the only state of grace I have
in this mad, mad world
is that you aren’t here 
to witness my heartbreak
at seeing you die
a thousand small deaths every day.