Nothing (poem)

You were nothing really. 

Just a fuzzy dot on an ultrasound screen;  

unexpected and unwelcome 

It was too early. 

I was too young. 

I did not want your responsibility.

You were nothing really. 

A mere fragment.

Sure you existed, a collection of atoms;   

but only as a wisp, a nonentity.

Unreal but substantial

in my fevered imagination. 

You were nothing really. 

Yet I painted your face with my lips.

My nose, his eyes, 

my smile, his laughs.

I walked carefully and fearfully. 

I did not jostle you even in my dreams.  

You were nothing really. 

Some blood and fluid, that’s all.

Merely a distant longing. 

An imperceptible wish, yet you seemed 

fully formed, mentally fashioned    

into solid physicality. 

 

You were nothing really. 

You grew, but you didn’t-

that’s what they said. 

It happens, they said, more often than you know.

It’s not your fault.

Its nothing that you did.

 

You were nothing really.

Zero, chimera, delusion.  

Then why did my heart break? 

How funny that it should cry 

over something that was 

nothing, absolutely nothing, really.