The Orphanage Within

All the selves I was –

Babies

Toddlers

Teenagers

– they are still inside me. Fractured into lonely rooms of pain. An orphanage in my stomach, of screaming babies, toddlers, and teens.

I feel their pain in my body and I experience their fears.

This is what triggers are. 

Younger me tugging on my dress and begging for my comfort.

But I’ve been one woman alone in this orphanage.

Every time I pick up one child, I’m ignoring another. The ignored one's cries fill my heart --

The one in my arms remains uncared for,

My heart breaks again,

And I join the ranks of these empty selves,

Wailing for love.

The house is filling still.

Today I heard a whisper, from the past:

“Good mothers know when winter is winter.”

Something an ancestor once told me from beyond the veil.

I put down the baby I cannot help.

I run to where I remember the front door might be.

It’s wallpapered over, behind a bookshelf. I shove it aside, ignoring gasps of surprise rising over the constant wailing. The books tumble and my fingers tear at the seam in the wall. Some of my teenage selves see what I’m doing, and they join. Fingers tearing away glue and paper and dust and regret.

Light.

I find the door handle and heave. A groan: the house opens, exhuming dust and screams.

Beyond is white light. A queue of golden figures.

My Grandmama (the angel who visited me through my childhood – an actual ancestor) smiles down at me. She kneels down to my form, crouched over the doorframe. “It’s winter. We’re here to help.”

I sit beside the open front door and angel ancestors approach, one by one. Grandmama hands me a new child. A baby, open mouth screaming.

“Diaper change,” I say. My arms tremble as I hold this baby up to the woman behind Grandmama. I should be the one to do this. I should have been there. I should have done more. Look at this multitude of people. They wouldn’t have to be here if I could just have done it –

The weight of the baby disappears. She is carried away, and her screaming stops. Safe. That one is safe.

Grandmama puts the next one on my lap. Tell her a joke. A kind man lifts up a five-year-old me. I hear a little giggle in the whiteness beyond where I can see.

The next: a hug. Next, sit with her. Next – oh this one needs a job. A doable one. Let her take one of the toddlers who needs a hug.

The line of golden ancestors goes on and on and my arms relinquish baby after baby and child after child.

Until I can’t lift my arms anymore. I can’t determine one more need.

That’s when Grandmama’s hand rests on my shoulder. The angels will keep going, but I'm allowed to go.

I rise and I walk with her to the whiteness beyond.

And my own screaming finally quiets.