I have been pregnant for the last fourteen years, and I am still carrying the life that remains curled in my womb, in my head, refusing to be born. And there is no doctor who can give me prostaglandins to induce birth so that my cervix will dilate and open up so I can push the story out. There is no doctor to lay me on the delivery table and probe between my legs with a forceps and pull out this story, nor am I eligible for a scheduled c-section to deliver this story while I am out unaware. It is a lie that elephants have the longest gestation period: 95 weeks, which makes a year, eight months and a week…. right, whatever!

I have been pregnant with this story for fourteen years, for fourteen years I have been carrying this man, who ever so often tugs at me, but still refuses to be born. I thought I had aborted him, rinsed him from my thoughts, decided there wasn’t a story there after all. Done. Moved on to the next poem and story, and I have written many since his first appearance. Then a few years later he appeared again, for a little while and I thought I miscarried him, a probing sadness that he came and went without turning into a real life, that I could carry around and show off, and say isn’t he cute, doesn’t he look like his other brothers and sisters, doesn’t he have my cheek bones, eyes…?

I recovered from his loss, and moved on, birthed other children who did not cling to my womb refusing the life that I was so willingly granting. They choose to be born and were named and published and thereby got to share their lives with others. And still others fought for place in my womb, racing frantically in this 40 million sperm marathon, most never lasting long enough to reach the uterus, make it to the oviduct, and still further up the oviduct where the egg is located, and then the road is still uphill from there, to break down the walls of the cumulus oophrous, all fighting more frantic and more eagerly, but only one, at least one at a time will fertilize my egg, and I will sit with loving patience and listen to and write their story. Well that is the way things are supposed to happen, but somehow this man won the sperm marathon, got inside my womb and stay glued to its walls, comfortable, contented, just hanging out, allowing many who came long after him to be born.

And here he comes, peeping out, spreading my legs wide on the Bart train (although still not ready to be born), just last night as I was returning home from the birthday party of my poet friend Nellie Wong, with the most outlandish opening if there ever was one. I should have known he was special since when he first came to me he was sitting in his living room building his coffin. And I told him I just could not have that, and his feeling were hurt and he went away. Then he came back a few years later and had a woman friend, although he was still building his coffin. I told him that I might be able to work with that – every one deserves a life and who am I to say to this man, you shouldn’t be building your coffin and courting a woman at the same time. And since she was cool with it, I said , okay I will give you a chance. But then he didn’t know what to do with this woman, and she wasn’t so sure if she should avail herself since when he invited her over, the coffin was in the living room like the proverbial white elephant in the room, except she really could deal more easily with a white elephant, any elephant even a herd, rather than the coffin. She just sat there ever so often glancing at it, hoping he wasn’t planning to kill her and put her in it, as they sipped rum and coke. Nothing happened, so I assumed, erroneously, that he just up and died and slipped from my womb while I was asleep and unaware.

Fast forward to last night on the Bart train and he appears in my head as clear and familiar as if it was yesterday, vexed that he came home, and this woman who it turns out he has only been seeing for a little over three moths he gave the key to his house and he returned to find her asleep in his coffin. At first he thought she was dead and was wondering how he was going to explain that to the cops, but then he realized she was asleep. Imagine my astonishment at these two people who have now taken up residence inside my head and have been carrying on.

I am sick of him, and because he still is not born, he has no name, so I can’t even shout, “Hey Delroy! or hey Jimmy or Sambu! Stop that and get out my womb! I have carried you long enough!” He pouts and tells me that is not his name, and to leave him be. You see my crosses. What can I do? It has been fourteen long years that he first came to me, and I hope now he is ready, but I don’t think he is a short story as I had hoped, I think now because he has been with me such a long time, he thinks he deserves a novel. I don’t know. I tell him I will see, but he cannot move as slowly as he has been these last fourteen years, we are both getting on with age and need to just decide.

That fact is, like me, I have known other writers who have been carrying a story with them for a lifetime, or at least for years. The average novel takes two years to be born, and this is true even of male writers, so again writers belie scientific evidence and data collectors who neglect to document these births of ours, often long and arduous– as we do give birth to stories and poems. As for women writers we never approach menopause, in fact we are often more prolific having multiple births as we approach that period.

 Coming Next: 10 Reasons To Be A Writer

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