BLOOM

"Enter the womb

The canal to life

Touch the flesh

That will never mesh with you.

View the unknown

Smell the aroma of beginnings

Enhance the lighting

Of these dark days".

I read this every morning with hot tea, a slice of lemon, and a half stick of cinnamon. Then I start my bath with a squeeze of vanilla and aloe under the rush of hot water from my unique and vintage faucet. I tiptoe across the bubbles making sure I carefully embrace the heat towards my body. I am alone. Fairly lonely. Nothing more than the rain to keep me company right now. Even with a crack in my window, the breeze is slow to comfort me. So I submerge my cares into a shallow heart developed over years of doing each and every day by myself.

Quickly I am drawn to the race of any and everywhere to go, as I make my way down my brown stone steps that escort me from my front doors to the brick street ahead. Pulling my London fog hooded jacket over my head, I snatch the first cab coming towards my left. As peaceful as my morning began, I am now intertwined with the noise of profanity dancing with hip hop blasting from the back speakers right into my ears. I cover my thoughts with my shades, hold my briefcase dear to my heart and once again accept the reversed roles of control.

As I jump over the puddles onto the sidewalk, I am met with wandering eyes. Some dark, some blue, some brown, some big, and some squinted,

I enter through the heavy glass doors pulling them wide enough to squeeze through quickly. A foyer of elevators begins to chime as I punch the access code to the third floor.

"Good morning Bloom '', a faint greeting towards me as I exit the elevator straight into the carpeted waiting room of my practice. I turn on the lamps and see my receptionist with her short blond pixi cut sitting behind the glass window.. I speak and walk straight to my office. The aroma of coffee shuffles through the warm air escaping dusty vents. I open the gray panel curtains that hang from the ceiling to the floor. The dew on the windows are fading into focus and I can see the beautiful dogwoods standing still.

"My name is Bloom. And I will be helping you today". I am sure that my assistant has answered any concerns you have as well as advising you of this procedure.

A frail young woman sits with her back against the wall as if she was sitting on her own bunk bed at home securing her privacy uptop never considering the fall to come.

She smiles with desperate eyes as if to say, "can I at least ask one more thing?". But she won't get that chance because I never welcome a discussion. I never allow emotions to gravitate me into a world I will never know. So I give her a few minutes to get comfortable and lay down.

I walk out leaving the sound of tears in the cold and hard walls. I keep walking as if my hallway has no end. The further the sound escapes me, my heart relaxes more and more. I sit at my desk and recline my thoughts into a cloud of "what ifs". Having lost count of every encounter, I come to grips that I have allowed my inabilities to take a stronghold over my pitty. I prepare myself for battle with words as rocks. But when the battle is over, I search for solitude.

"Sexy as June

are the flowers

that bloom

from every bud

that the sepals protect

So her womanhood

stood

against the powers that

could

protect her internal stages of production

forming human, after human, after human

until the end of her time".

I retract my steps and enter the elevator to the ground floor. There is no clatter or chatter as the lobby is useless at this hour. I'm in no rush to get home. So I don't whistle for a cab. I don't wish for my own space on the sidewalk. As the sun is no longer burdened to shine, the moon softly assumes its role for this night.

The rain has moved on. And the skies are clear. I'm entertained by car horns as they pass me by. I'm teased with quick aromas of italian pizza, sugary dough, and grease. A southerner once asked me, "what does New York smell like?" Everything! I said, Everything!

If I could tell the truth, I would sit face to face with a deciding mother; albeit a stranger, and confess that I should have conversed with that girl today. I wish I allowed her question to sit upon the weights that I can carry. But instead, I think I may have put a period on a life that she was deciding to keep. I have allowed my spirit of "if I can, so can you" to address every patient ahead of my logic, my empathy, my failure to want to understand.

Why today? A day that began lonely in the rain. Why do I care?

What if I allowed her to ask "Bloom, if I decide to have this baby, would you adopt it?" What if I allowed a new life to flash before my eyes, like the mother struggling to pull the pink and brown paisley stroller down the brownstone steps. And the joy of sharing stories in the park with the dad who's a stay at home dad playing with his son at the swing set. And the fear and thrill of interviewing a nanny to care for the most precious person in my life! And the moments that my heart cannot wait to hold you in my arms and cuddle together at night.

What if I folded on my own child!

I would have said yes! I would have answered her and hugged her and assured her that everything would be fine because I want this baby too!

I'm so sorry ! All of these years I pulled life into a lifeless state of being and I never cared to let them bloom.