I am not pregnant

So I know I said I would only be posting things on Sundays but today something came up and...I don't know...I wanted to share it with everyone. There was a slight pregnancy scare here in San Juan and it caused some feelings to rear their ugly heads. Here it goes:

Clear: the result
Blue: a little
Easy: not as much as you would think

I am not pregnant.

For five days I wondered, what if. What if for nine months the clothes that fit me a few days ago now rubbed into the swelling mound that housed half of me? What if my jeans could no longer hold in the life that grew so intensely inside of me that it stretched my skin, stretched my imagination far beyond the boundaries of my own selfishness? What if I started to cry at all the things that were supposed to make me sad before but didn’t? What if changes in hormones are just this littlealmostperson inside of me teaching me what it really means to be human? To be good? Finally? What if I could create something that wasn’t about receiving accolades, hugs, positive comments on my blog, props, or a beer from a boy who wants to hit it or a smile from a girl who thinks I’m cool? What if I were a mother just like my mother? Only better? What if I talked to my baby about everything instead of saying “because I said so”? What if I no longer hesitated to hug someone when she cried or walked away when she needed me?

For five days I thought about having to make one of the hardest decisions in my life. For five days I thought about this moment right now, in the bathroom, sweating, shaking, not wanting to look at myself in the mirror, not knowing which result will be the right one. Then I peed into a white, plastic fortuneteller and waited for two minutes for either one or two lines. One line=I’m good. Two lines=I’m fucked. For five days I entertained the romanticized idea of what it would be like to have a child. I would do yoga everyday so that my baby would come into this bleak world flexible, ready to bend and not be broken by the difficult situations this world would throw at her. I would eat only the most pure and natural foods so that my baby would be healthy, not addicted to the chemicals, preservatives, and artificial colors that only serve to make us weak to the interests of companies who only think they are larger and more powerful than the love I would have for that imaginary child inside my empty womb. I would sing to her and dance with her to give her the lightness of spirit that will allow her to travel inside the spirits of others and heal them.

My baby would see inside of you, see through the wool you will try to pull over her eyes, see solutions in people blinded by ignorance.

I would exercise everyday so she could be strong enough to fuck shit up. Tear down seemingly impenetrable walls of silence. Slice through handcuffs with the sharp blade of her tongue. Lift the weight of oppression off of our chests with her bare, calloused hands. Carry the baggage our grandmothers have hauled for too long with their long, sinewy fingers spotted with age, broken by generations of hearing, "no, you can’t do that." She would be strong enough to love whomever she wanted, fearlessly, fiercely because I would have planted that love inside of her, fearlessly and fiercely.

But. I am not pregnant.

So I stared at the white, plastic fortune teller that comes in the aluminum wrapping that comes in the white and pink box, that is Walgreens brand because my first response to First Response was, “hell no, my unemployed ass will not spend eight more dollars for the same shit I can get for $11.99.” And I waited for the second blue line to not show up. And in the empty white space that confirmed my empty uterus, after the two minutes of obligatory waiting time, I saw nothing. I don’t have to say nothing. To him. I don’t have to plan nothing. With him. I don’t have to worry about nothing. And so, I threw out the white plastic fortuneteller in the white plastic bag it came to me in, rolled a cigarette, poured a glass of wine, and felt nothing.