In celebration of National Poetry Month I’ll be writing and posting a poem a day for the entirety of April. No haikus. Nothing about wheat, unless fermented. All of the poems can be found here.
More often than not people’s first reaction
to the declaration that I don’t want children
is, “How did you become sterile?”
or, “What’s it like to be sterile?”
or, “I think we should see other people.”
My issue is not with children per se,
but rather the people they turn into,
to carry the weight of that responsibility,
seems unnerving, anti-theoretical,
to my life devoid of responsibility.
Also, the crying. And the late nights.
And the cracked nipples. And the expenses.
And the constant wardrobe changes.
And the lack of reason or rationale.
If I wanted these things, I’d get remarried.
I met a child once. I found it precocious,
but not in a marketable way. It had an odd name
and affection for inexpensive cheeses.
It referred to itself in the first person,
yet couldn’t spell its own name.
