9 of Swords

I would behold your beauty,

Your light and the ones you believed

And the plight and trail of deceit

And your dependencies.

I'd stroke your hair,

though you're gone they've said.

Your perfect mouth, never fed

I pretend the need to nurture and teach

have fled

While the Ivy creeps further up the wall.

Don't grieve they said.

You've not lost. Don't mourn.

But every time I miss the morn,

the absent cries fill me with scorn.

What are many sleepless nights?

When I should bask in your delight.

When I should struggle to lay to rest,

With a tiny head laid on my breast,

And have to keep through every temperament

To wonder in a life, soon spent.

Instead, I'm feigning I'm asleep.

Waiting up, alone to weep.

Letting them believe the lie,

Tear stained bullshit mantras,

"Blessed am I"

Still I won't, and can't believe.

My shocked Iron Fist holds onto grief

Disenfranchised pain. Family fled.

And a fragment of doubt resounds in my head,

Were you ever here? Are you even dead?

Your noiseless voice whispers near

"I am not gone. I was not here".

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The 9 of Swords is a card of distress, trauma, and sleepless nights. It is often associated with miscarriage. In this poem I have related the card to my own painful experiences with recurrent miscarriage, including a late term loss. I felt cut off from my pain, and couldn't voice it... but it ate me alive. I was on autopilot for a long time, essentially in a waking nightmare, and though I was surrounded by people who loved me, showered me with flowers and gave practical support, nobody reached out to comfort me. I guess they couldn't understand, and didn't dare touch the can of worms. All I needed to hear was that my grief was justified, and that my baby was loved... It hurt so much that everyone acted like it was all a nothing. This is the outward expression everything I kicked inside. I have released it in the hope that others who struggle with this pain may be inspired to use their pain in making healing creations too.