\u201cWhy isn\u2019t he crying?\u201d
I look up to the Angel her sleeves rolled back
Covered in my fluids
Thousands of drops coat her fingers
My blood the brightest, cakes her pale hands,
The hands holding my son<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He\u2019s not the glass doll in the nativity set
He\u2019s limp
Silent
Silent night, holy night
She looks up with blue eyed horror
This is not the perfect scene<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was supposed to be loud, hungry and gorgeous
I look as she takes a single white nail and cuts the cord
One swipe we are no longer one
The boy I screamed to hold
He didn\u2019t scream back
Silent night, holy night<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She rushes away holding him
Like if she doesn\u2019t cradle his neck and back He might fall in two
That\u2019s when it started, my sobs
The need to stand up
I was bleeding, split in two
I tried to stand and cried like a dog hit by it\u2019s owners truck<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Shock and need to get away, away, away
Joseph wrapped me in his arms
To comfort me?
No, to keep me still
Pin the weeping cow as her calf
is ripped toward the meat drawer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next to me in the dirty broken barn
The donkey’s ears twitch
Eyes wide as it lets out a quiet huff
I knew she was a Jill
In her eyes was a mother
who\u2019s waited like me before
Silent night, holy night<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Angel shook
I could hear her teeth chatter
God didn\u2019t prepare her for a dead savior
Her wings were tall
making a white feathery wall
Blocking me from my boy<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hate her
She delivered my son
She\u2019s saving my son
She\u2019s here to protect us and I hate her
If he doesn\u2019t live
What am I?
A game<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nine months of pain
Morning sickness
Feet swollen into hooves
Tears fat and stupid
I was a dancing fool
The bells ringing above my head<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought it confirmation he was with me
All it had been was a jester\u2019s hat
Hot tears rolled down my cheeks
I pushed myself away from Joseph
who loved me through everything
My pretty saintly bullshit became his
I was an idiot<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I hate god
Give me my son
I\u2019m not asking I\u2019m telling
Don\u2019t let him be a painful transaction
Don\u2019t let him die in a crash he didn\u2019t cause
Don\u2019t make me the foolish dancing monkey<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was fourteen dammit when you asked me
Of course I\u2019d say yes
How dare you
How fucking dare you take my boy
My beautiful sweet, gorgeous, giving, dead, dead, dead-<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A single long cry that made my aching core sew itself together
My tears felt like foreign objects on my skin
I didn\u2019t know why they\u2019d be there when\u2019s he\u2019s here
The Angel holds him like a precious thing
A holy thing
A gorgeous gorgeous thing<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All mine to love and hold
She sets him in my arms
one hand on his neck the other on his back
I grin like a fool
He\u2019s covered in the filth from my body
I lay a hand on his naked chest his heart beating<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s gonna run dry one day
To bleed away all wrongs and make all rights
as gorgeous as him
But right now he\u2019s making little squeaks
Tiny confused cries
And when he latches onto my chest I feel him feed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His crying stops
It\u2019s a silent night, a holy night
That\u2019s when I understand why the whole world sings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhy isn\u2019t he crying?\u201dI look up to the Angel her sleeves rolled backCovered in my fluidsThousands of drops coat her fingersMy blood the brightest, cakes her pale hands,The hands holding my son He\u2019s not the glass doll in the nativity setHe\u2019s limpSilentSilent night, holy nightShe looks up with blue eyed horrorThis is not the perfect […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"art_contributors":[],"literary_contributors":[428],"class_list":["post-5658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","literary_contributors-gibson-lillie"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5658"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5660,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5658\/revisions\/5660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5658"},{"taxonomy":"art_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/art_contributors?post=5658"},{"taxonomy":"literary_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/literary_contributors?post=5658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}