I thought lemons only grew in warm climates
I wonder what made you choose my rain
You started like a hangover
Bubbling within me
I thought you were nothing, then
When hiding your rattling behind clouds of smoke
I thought you nothing
When the minty bite of a stick of gum
Sent me sprinting
Stomach flipping somersaults
To lose my lunch
Before shuffling back to work
But you were persistent
Every morning
And if I moved at all
Or stood for too long
Or smelled something
Or saw something
You kicked up trouble
And demanded my attention
You screamed and spun
And threw tantrums
Your fingers tangled my intestines
Your feet planted in my focus
And I couldn’t let you go
We joke about it
Never us
Never me
Never this
The lady at the drugstore scanned me up and down
Before ringing me up
And tossing the brown bag across the counter
Which I grab with clumsy hands
And rush home
I find myself shaking the stick
And scouring the information
I take four more tests
And ace them all with flying colors
I thought lemons only grew in warm climates
I thought I’d purged the Florida from my body
With weekly injections and clothes from the men’s section
My mind reels out of the moment
And I think of every tropical climate
Housed and held within
Beautiful beings
I think of all the lemon trees
Those whose tiny ecosystems are prepared with care
Those for whom the womb is safe and steady and stable
I think of every fight fought
On every front for every belief
Those who work tirelessly to create space within themselves
Those who pound fists against the doors constructed to keep them from sunlight
Those for whom it is a journey
A struggle
A quest
I think of every terrified teen, confronted with adulthood too early
I think of bodies left shaking, bloodied, only to discover their trauma planted seeds
I think of my own reckless nights
Falling drunkenly into strange beds
And all the times I only avoided this through
Luck
And that blue cross swims back into my vision
When I tell my partner
No question in our minds of the next step
He reminds me when can never tell his family
God looms large
And teaches some that the sunlight of the womb is sacred
God shakes fingers
And sends floods
And we all hear so often about the “sanctity of life”
How seedlings must be allowed to grow and bloom
How these defenseless creatures must be loved and protected
I find myself using the word compassion
More than I have in years
As my rainy life puzzles through the reality of this newfound space
And papers and medical reminders pile on my coffee table
One day I wrote out my reason
And amid lists of finances
And time management
And ideologies
And climate
One phrase jumps
Planned Parenthood asked for my pronouns.
