by Janelle Hardacre

I slide my trousers down and there you are. Messy glob, where you’re not supposed to be. I haven’t seen you in, what, six months? Since you were always regular as clockwork. Always unwelcome. Not since those two beautiful magenta lines, proving that we did work properly.

How long we begged, strove, pleaded for nature to do its thing. Until we collapsed, no longer able. That’s when the miracle happened. They say it does when people stop ‘trying’.

In eleven weeks my woman body will do what it’s supposed to. Will flush and push and contract until the space in my arms is finally filled with the love we’ve so waited for.

So you. Warm, pinkish, sticky you. You’re not there. When I pull my knickers up, I will forget I ever saw you. You never were. There is no dull ache.  And everything in my belly will be well.

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Janelle Hardacre was born in Yorkshire and now lives in Manchester where she works in PR by day and writes or sings by night.