ELL poem by
JUANA JAQUELINE ESPEJO ORTIZ
The uproar of January 22, would, for me, be a personal revelation on such a controversial topic,
“Abortion.” Whether it’s legal or it’s not, we’re either pro-life or pro-choice.
Here’s my point: It was on the aforementioned date when, amidst crying, strong cramps,
confusion, despair, and a whole whirlwind of emotions, I saw the joy of motherhood disappear
just hours after confirming it with my gynecologist. The precautions, my prenatal preparation,
and all my years of waiting for the right moment to become a mother were of no use. I feel it
was useless to overthink the past about whether I wanted to be a mother or not. I suppose this magnificent bond is experienced in such diverse ways that it’s often confused between desire
and lack of desire.
I lost you—my love—and with that, I gained terror, and anguish fills me every time I think of you. I’m
so confused I don’t even know what to call you. You are the emotion closest to the perfection of
love and the abyss of the deepest pain, immense as the ocean, empty as the very excess of everything.
I love you in a way that I cannot ever explain it logically. I think of you as my mind wanted to
imagine you but suffers because it’s not real.
“You had a miscarriage,” they all say, but inside me there is more than death, more than pain,
more than sadness. “You’re going to be okay” they all say, but I know that I will always miss you,
those little eyes I couldn’t see, those little hands that couldn’t hold on to my thumbs, that jolt of
the universe on the day you were born. “You’re not the only one who went through this,” they all
say, with the innocent hope of comforting me, unaware that their words are like katanas cutting
into my soul, because thinking that others like me have experienced, are experiencing right now,
and will experience a loss of a large part of their soul called “abortion” plunges me into silent
agony, into that intense agony of not being able to change destiny.