This poem is about my brother, Arron, who died in utero 10 months before I was born. He would've been my mom's first child, an Aquarius. He was almost 7 months along when he passed, and was delivered as a stillborn. I am my mother's second child, and her only one--and this poem talks about a lot of complicated feelings that come with being the surviving child, and a girl.

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A sign on the subway says ‘The only way out is back in’.

So I slip into something more comfortable

A womb, perhaps, or a blanket of dark matter

Its a dance that I can do, simple—an endless sweeping motion,

And then under the rug it goes and when

The rug is shook out the little people in the dust go flailing

Like crashed cars into the ceiling, the floor. They stick to my shoes

Like bubble gum and go unnoticed in the same way.

It’s all a blur until later. That’s life. Passenger seat, four in the morning,

Thousands of bouncing colors flash by in sparks on the other side

Of the window glass and eventually, they make pictures

But always too late to say ‘can you please stop the car?’

You moved too fast for my eyes to make sense of you, and now

You are red, green, blue, and too faraway to understand.

Every phone booth fills up with water, and the operator, who has

Your voice says ‘now for a daring escape’ and when the curtain comes up

There is a dial tone and a phone hanging like a limp wrist

Like a needle tied to a length of string, spinning, spinning.

For every little girl that’s born

There’s another dead baby boy.

These are the facts.