keep it inside, just whatever you do keep-it-in.

i’ve repeated thousands of times, thousands of patients, “keep it in”.

the emotions always seep through.

i just told a woman her baby didn’t survive.

she couldn’t keep it in. her sobs were haunting, an inkling of a pain i once felt before.

i can’t remember? i think i’ve kept whatever it was in too long. it sunk in & normalized my being. whatever-this-is darkens my womb.

it’s the pit of the avocado i ate this morning. it takes space & can be reproduce on to others making them this way.

i think it reminds me of motherhood, my mother’s hood. she wore an invisible one around me.

it was like she was afraid or embarrassed.

of me.

she wore shame like prada & motherhood like hand-me-downs. it was like i was birth to hopelessness.

the doctors told her i wouldn’t make it, though i did. i heard she weeped.

dawn shines & the suns enlightens me, i remember.

the sounds, the cry’s. they’re the same. pain for pain. lost for life.

my patient cried like she did, the lost of a life; my mother cried for a lost of her life.

“it’s okay, don’t keep it in”, my patient said as i weeped with her.

“don’t keep in whatever this is”.

- raii, miraila.