Ed Ismail

Your child is funny

How cute it is when it says words

Like an adult, it inserts the things

It needs to say

So that we may

Understand and never stray

So that it’s impossible to not betray

How someone so young has the ability to display

It’s feelings and requests

As you the parent, the teacher and adult

Digests and protects

All the information you collect

In order to connect

Overprotect

And never suspect anything of ill will

What a thrill you must get to have planted seeds

That feeds

And succeeds in the need to inform you of what is necessary

As if you notate the dictation

Like an obedient secretary

How you act on this commentary is so regularly, delicately and indefinitely

Inevitably pleasing to that of the speaker

In an appeal to not appear weaker

You, the speaker, the parent, the teacher

The backside cleaner

The responsibility of the world’s future

The burden carried

Pushing one out as soon as you’re married

But me, no!

There’s no wisdom for me to pass on

Not a choice, not a chance to influence

No chance to make a difference

But that’s okay

I can weigh my responsibilities relinquished in kilos

No chance of flooding your time-line with photos

I get no 24 weeks

No embryos

And what would I teach if I could?

How would I make my offspring be understood?

Do my best to make them good

Set them off on the right foot

Well

I’d insure they were secure in being themselves

Instil the fact that we aren’t born racist,

sexist, fascist nor do we store negative thoughts for those we simply don’t understand

There’s no discrimination due to their tastes, beliefs or DNA strands

We should look at what people hold in their hearts

And not what they hold in their hands

And then I look at my hands

Just filled with air

There's nothing there for me to cradle

There's nothing for me to care

I don't get to rock baby to sleep

I don't get to encourage a toddler to imagine counting sheep

Instead in my hands is my heart

Barely beating, broken leaving me to weep

But that's okay right?

Some things just aren't meant to be

Doesn't make you feel better though does it?

I never thought it possible to grieve for a life that was never here

To grieve for choices I'll never have

What do I do with the feelings

Of always wanting to be a Dad?

Don't tell me to adopt or that I have an angel in heaven

Don't complain to me about your kids in your ear hole 24/7

Don't tell me to make lemonade out of life's harshest lemon

These feelings I have

All bitter and twisted

What pill can I take for all these things listed?

Until one day, hope on a bus was gifted

I wasn't aware how far I had drifted

 

A little girl I saw

For a moment I thought her mine

Then I noticed her mother

Not giving her time

No attention or responses

As she called out to “Mummy”

Instead all this girl saw was the back of a phone

And manicured nails

Watching fingers move up and down

No time for stories

No time for tales

Just an accessory for your life so privileged

She’s calling to you

Can you not give her a smile

Can you not try to connect

You’ll be on this bus for a while

The sounds must be upsetting

The movement might be rough

Can’t you show your daughter some love?

Rather than displaying you don’t care enough

She calls out again

She’s shushed as the phone chimes

“Mummy” answers a call

As baby girl whines

This makes me so mad

It’s a cruel and unfair world

I look at the little girl’s curls

I imagine them around my fingers twirled

I imagine her laughing as I make silly faces

I imagine her smiling as I shower her with love

And then I find myself standing

Then going to pick her up

She holds out her hands

Desperation in her eyes

She looks like she’s been crying

Then I realise

The tears I see

Are mine

 

I know not what I’m doing

So I sit straight back down

“Mummy’s” completely oblivious

I could cry ‘til I drown

I hate having these feelings

I wish they weren’t mine

I wish I didn’t have to lie

Tell everyone I’m fine

I wish I didn’t see reminders

Every day of my life

That I’ll never be a Father

That I can’t heal my wife

Family and friends

They just don’t get it

The know what they have to lose is so precious

So they don’t want to see it

But it feels so unjust

That I have be it

The minority

The one with quietest voice

Well this is what it’s like

Being Childless, Without Choice