Mother’s Day of 2018, a man hands me a rose and tells me 

I have the spirit of a mother. 

He tells me that just because I don’t have a child yet  

doesn’t mean I can’t be motherly 

and then asks me if I want children someday. 

“Kind of” is not the answer I give him

but it’s the answer I feel. 

There’s so much I want to feel.

I want to feel the joy of holding my child close to me 

I want the giggles and the heartbreaks and the growing pains and the hate you that comes before the inevitable  love you. 

I want to love a part of me that I did not know existed. 

I want to hold their hands through their first steps in life, I want to sneak them through windows when the doors seem closed.

But what if the hands they hold on to 

as they take their first steps 

are the same hands that aren’t able to save them? 

If depression comes knocking on their door  

like it did on their mother’s

will I hear it before it’s too late?

I don’t want to give my daughter lungs that never feel quite full 

I don’t want to give my son a load he cannot carry 

I am terrified to give something life that may not even want it. 

Just because they would be a part of me doesn’t mean they’d want to be.

I don’t want my child feeling so guilty that a part of them hates me 

for even considering having them. 

I cannot imagine 

finding the cuts up and down her legs.

I cannot imagine 

praying for the doctor to find his heartbeat twice 

I cannot imagine 

hearing my daughter throw up her dinner to fit into a world

she did not ask to be brought into.

Yes I love my children that may be or never will 

and that is exactly the problem. 

Maybe that’s why I have the spirit  of a mother; 

I want the best for them even if it means 

I will never have them.