Elaine Ritchie

“Do you have kids?”, a simple question that’s said.
But oh, how this question fills me with dread.
They were so wanted, but for me not to be
So, my reluctance to answer, I hope you can see.

You wait for my answer as you ask me this question
My face flushes red, hot with the tension.
How can I answer? Do I tell you the truth?
Because it’s a long story that goes back to my youth.

For as long as I remember kids were my dream
So, your question isn’t as simple as it were to seem.
Sometimes my answer, I reply as a joke
As to tell the real story, tells of my heart when it broke.

I wonder to you, why does it matter?
Maybe you see it as everyday chatter
But to me, it’s a question that really hurts
And the truth of the answer I try to avert.

It’s a story of pain, of intimate matters
That left me bereft and my womb was in tatters.
Years of injections, procedures and op’s
Of scars inside and outside, the pain never stops

I ask you politely to stop and to think
For some of us, kids are our missing link
By asking that question what is your gain
As being asked this, causes me such great pain.

There is so much more to us, that make us easy to chat
But “Do you have kids?”, please don’t ask that.
Before you ask who, we have in our nest
Remember that some of us were sadly not blessed.