My OK

I am currently teaching my sophomores about Spoken Word poetry. I love it. They love it. There are some amazing poets in this word. I had my students write their own poem. A philosophy I have in my classroom is that I don't give assignments to my students that I wouldn't do myself. It cuts down on the busy work and I think it helps my students to know that I do the work too.

A lot of spoken word poems are about emotional events and memories in the writers life. I wrote my poem about my miscarriage. I read it to them which was hard but I do the same things my students do.

This poem is about the moments when I see a baby or receive a bill in the mail for my D and C. This isn't an all the time emotion. It's a strike at the heart for a few minutes emotion.

So here it is:

My OK
by Emily Garrard

It’s not OK.

That is what the Doctor said.

IT’S NOT OK.

You’re right.

It’s not.

It aches.

It throbs. I

t disappears for a time.

But then an infant fills my eyes,

and that spasm tackles from the corner.

My baby.

Dead.

Reminded.

Again.

It’s not OK.

Absence makes love grow fonder.

Right.

Vacancy creates questions.

Questions and questions and uncertainty.

My baby. Dead. Vacant. Unseeable.

Anger grows then fades.

Tears never drop.

Only uncertainty rolls through the vitality.

Don’t say it. That is their request.

I say it because it’s real.

Because it can’t be contained.

Because it is NOT OK.

My Ok is not yours.

It creeps in infinitesimally.

It is space that attacks.

My baby was mine.

Gone. Ethereal. Intangible.

OK. Mine.