hyperemesis by homicide

bro.
honestly,
i haven’t had a chance
to reflect
on anything—
until right now.

i’ve been in
survival
for so long
i couldn’t even
connect the dots.

yo.
i didn’t just have
a hard pregnancy.
i didn’t just throw up.
i fucking deteriorated.
like my body was trying to die
before he could finish the job.

i threw up every day.
20, sometimes 30 times a day.
i shit you not.
by the third trimester,
i couldn’t even walk.
but i still cleaned houses.
still taught a full
virtual fucking
yoga teacher training—
seriously
my heart rate
was so high
the monitors screamed.
i had to be observed
connected to machines
for hours
all the time
alone.
my baby’s heart rate
spiked so high
the doctors sent me
to the fucking ER
alone—again.
dehydrated.
dizzy.
shaking.
suffocating in my own
fucking stomach acid.

and you know what
he was doing
while i was throwing up
in the hospital parking lot?

he was at the office.
the same office
his peers ZOOMED INTO
for a 2-hour training,
but he insisted
on staying all day.
5 days a week
my whole ass pregnancy
for no reason.
why?
no fucking idea
maybe to flirt with
an array of
cubicle work bitches?
to make no money at all?
to pretend he was “grinding”?
to prove he was a man?
while his pregnant wife—
the one who paid the bills,
paid the licensing,
paid for his fucking car—
was dragging herself
up and down the stairs
with a 140 lbs shitting dog,
in the middle of winter,
frozen second floor steps—
vomiting,
shaking,
fucking dying.

you didn’t support me.
bro—
you didn’t even fucking
check on me.
you left me broke,
isolated,
sick,
while you beat
the fucking shit out of me
and made me feel
like it was my fucking fault.
i now know
i didn’t throw up
because of hormones.
i threw up because
you were fucking killing me.

you suffocated me.
you slammed me into floors.
you strangled me.
you spit in my face.
you took me from
standing to my fucking back.
you shoved me into walls.
you pinned me on the floor
with your shins—
and covered my mouth
and nose
until i thought i’d die.
repeatedly.
increasingly.

and still
you made it about you.
you probably told
your coworkers
i was the abusive one.
or crazy?
fucking trapped you?
you most definitely
paraded into that fucking office
like a goddamn victim.
while i was at home
or working my balls off—
throwing up literal blood
and crying on the fucking floor
as i was paying for your gas
to fucking betray me.

and no one was coming to help.

and then your
fucking coworkers
enrolled me in life insurance policies.
while i couldn’t even
keep water down.
while you were punching
bruises into my skull.

you didn’t just
ruin my pregnancy.
you turned it into
a fucking crime scene.
you stole the joy,
the safety,
the beauty.
you tried to turn it
into my fucking grave.

i always wanted
to be a fucking mom.

this was my fucking dream.

i didn’t even
ever want you.

you knew that.
i told you that.
at the fucking jump.

you knew i had
just lost everything,
the baby before—
and i just wanted
one of my own
that survived.

and you fucking volunteered.

and my dumbass—
i just thought
since you asked,
since you wanted this,
since you asked me
to fucking marry you—
you wouldn’t try
to fucking murder me.

but i see it now.

and if you think
for one second
i’m ever letting
our daughter
believe this is normal,
you’re out
of your fucking mind.

this wasn’t pregnancy.
this was fucking war.
and i survived.