Melissa Bishop
Melissa is an assistant professor at Cape Breton University in the School of Education and Health. Her work focuses on identity formation, lived experiences, and well-being of educators working with small children. As a cancer survivor and childless-not-by-choice woman, her current writing is grounded in the healing powers of poetry.
Through the Mire is a collection of four poems addressing the emotional turmoil of a cancer diagnosis leading to childlessness-not-by-choice.
ENLIVENING MY ACARPOUS SPIRIT
…met with trembling hands. soft to touch – amniotic embrace grips the tiny spark. anesthetized. internally screaming, shrieking, spewing obscenities. writhing, wrestling, wailing. flesh pulled from the womb. withering after capture. evicted, extracted unwillingly. met with sterile luminosity.
tapped into a dish. instruments bloody. Legs – once open – rest peacefully. garments gloves gadgets haphazardly pushed aside. Fissures of people in a chaotic glow. bathed in euphoric bliss – interrupted – flooded by fear.
drink this. move your arm. can you tell me where you are. how are you feeling. rapid-fire questions. do you want to see him. who. yes. rolled down the corridor. flashing fluorescent bulbs. stink of disinfectant. sterile. frigid. angry beeps. groggy. tell me what happened…agitated slumber
arouse. childless, wombless. future gone. motherhood gone. fibromuscular tissue gone. cancer gone. grief. decades of dead ends. fertility failure. finances approaching red. vagrantly wafting searching for motherhood. blessed bonus children. called me “mum”. unbearable grief and joy embraced in one word.
awakening. becoming. stepping into herself. her power. her protest. her advocacy. her being. mothering beyond biological babies. fruitfully nurturing bonds.
Birthing, loving, and mothering herself into existence…
JAVA
splays of light expose the darkness of the early morning
aromatic smells of Columbian blend, a brew
making its escape brimming, teetering on the edge
paralleling the emotional turbulence of the early morning
warm juices of the java bean sit dark as midnight
dark as my womb, empty of sugar, cream and all that makes the cheap dark roast tolerable
a womb intolerable, uninhabitable, uninviting to a tiny – potential – embryo
the first sip burns as much as the memory
salty, bitter tears erupt, spilling over flushed cheeks
dripping
dropping
dancing
cupped by trembling hands
the rose-coloured mug encapsulates a dark, bitter, salty truth
JUST
adopt
be grateful
be alive, it could have been a very different outcome – death
enjoy what you have
forget about it
volunteer, you have so much to give
feel less than
work
be free-spirited, unbound by the incessant demands of offspring
give back to others
live without worry
be independent, unburdened by the thoughts of others
Ceaselessly, I am ordered –
Just get over it.
INNOCEN/T/ENCE/…
sleepily clambering stairs
invisible resistance tugging me back, reaching for something unknown, unseen, untrue
each step (un)welcomed by surging anger
a collective of women? where?
Alone.
relentlessly thrust forward
savagely lonesome
salivating at every gimmer, maybe this time…
desperate to belong to this sanctity of motherhood
ascending, lurking down the corridor, a white framed door, its threshold impassable
left…gone…unattainable…seemingly infinite synonyms
floating in murky depths of quiet disdain
cherished childhood [childish?] fantasies veiled behind the white door
crossing its threshold (im)possible to imagine
once a wild-haired child, now a barren woman
embraced, no, afflicted by unarticulated truth(s)
