End of a World

In the back of the taxi on my way to the hospital, 
thighs clenched together,
the driver asked me, 
You visiting someone there? 
Yes, I said. I am visiting a friend.

When I get there, I will tell my friend that I was watching The Hundred Year Old Man who Stepped Out of a Window and Disappeared as my unborn was leaving. 
I will tell my friend that I had already been to hospital earlier that day. My cervix was closed, they said. Nothing impending. And sent me home. I stopped at a restaurant, 
ate wonton – little mouthfuls of hope. 
But I was aching still, with each step planted, I felt the coming away of two people. 
And I will tell my friend how soothing resignation, acceptance of fragility
 and the survival of the root of an idea can be.  
Frost can kill the early bud. 
And I will tell my friend the paramedic in green wanted to see what had left me, 
but it was already swimming fast. 
And I will tell my friend, I grew something once. Flower, flesh, sea monkey, baby. 
And I will tell my friend that when I passed the cemetery on my way, the dead rolled their eyes. How stupid of me to expect the comfort of strangers who had seen this all before. 
And I will tell my friend that something dying is not unique. Something dying is inevitable. 
And I will tell my friend that she is nothing special. That I am just like her, 
waiting in a waiting room on a plastic chair for somebody to cross the corridor and fetch me. 
And I will tell my friend that she will leave in the darkness with an empty box with an imagined person inside
and a leaflet. 
And I will tell my friend that the floor underneath her as she walks away is solid and tiled 
and the exit light glows green. 
And I will tell my friend to thank the nurse even though she has done nothing 
but scraped her clean.
And given her a leaflet. 
And I will tell my friend not to read the leaflet. It says nothing. Serving no purpose but to make the nurse feel better for not letting you leave completely empty-handed, 
not a bag, a bloom of a flower or a nightgown will leave with you.  
And I will tell my friend that this life is an insignificant piece of paper to be filed away. Most things can be read while waiting in a doctor’s surgery. 
And I will tell my friend not to call the doctor to ask what she should do between now and a time far in the distance. He will not help you. 
And I will tell my friend, do not expect much from her, your emptiness makes her uncomfortable, she wants you to say you are fine. 
She will avoid you for six months. 
And I will tell my friend that waiting for the new blood to come will be long and when it does 
I will tell my friend this is the body’s way of forgetting what has gone before.
And I will tell my friend that the blood’s arrival will be the happiest sad 
she will ever feel. 
And I will tell my friend that the body will recover long before the mind. 
And I will tell my friend that this is the way it will be over and over and over. 
And I will tell my friend to remember when the taxi door shuts and this is done, 
don’t look for what you left behind. Don’t look for what you can’t find. 

Rebecca Parfitt has been published widely. She is the author of one poetry collection, The Days After. In 2021 her short film, Feeding Grief to Animals was Commissioned and produced by the BBC and FfilmCymru Wales. She is also Editor of The Ghastling, a magazine devoted to ghost stories, horror and the strange. She is the Commissioning Editor for Honno press, the UK’s longest running women’s press. She lives and works in the Llynfi Valley, south Wales.