Michael Flanagan

Life      

Your daughter told you she was pregnant
by her long-term boyfriend. In response
you produced joke after joke until your wife
said why are you making jokes, stop, and your
daughter looked away saying, it's okay, it's
just a defense mechanism. Her first pregnancy
caused her to be violently ill with a rare disorder
called Hyperemesis Gravidarum. She lost twenty
five pounds in the first four months, vomited
even sips of water for eight months, hospitalized
seven times with severe dehydration, almost
dying. Eighty percent of women who suffer this
in their first pregnancy will have it with each
additional pregnancy. It shocked you even
more when she stated the pregnancy was planned.
The first year of her first born's life she
suffered postpartum depression, bedridden
at times, easy going others, days full of fierce
anger for no reason other than hormones.
Waking mornings your first thought
was always: Will she be all right today.
The boyfriend seems kind and decent
but It's doubtful he will be prepared
for any of this, the impossibility
of understanding before it's on you.

You almost lost your mind with the first baby,
watching your only daughter struggle so deeply.
Seeking relief you went to your doctor.
He said it was PTSD from years of worrying
through the clinical depression she has suffered
with from the age of fourteen, the psych wards
and self harm, the time she came so very close
to taking her own life, she was in hospital two
weeks, the struggles with a newborn only
compounding things for you. In the end they
sent you home with an anti-depressant that made
you feel you needed to crawl out of your skin
before nerves jangled you off a bridge.
There was some relief, getting off those pills,
returning to the normal horror. The second
birth is six months away. Being congratulated
hits like a mortar shell exploding. Probably
at the end of this long run everyone will be
fine. You'll suffer a thousand cuts, half
of them self-inflicted. Maybe the worst part
will be hiding the agony. You've already
convinced yourself your daughter will need
you present, optimistic, helpful. Instead
you'd like a small, rented room, a place to be
alone, single bed, stereo on, books to read,
a little food, nothing of depression and
worry, nothing of sadness and pretense. 

 

Michael Flanagan was born in the Bronx, N.Y. and currently lives in Canada, on Prince Edward Island. Poems and stories of his have appeared in many small press periodicals across the U.S. His full-length poetry collection, Days Like These (Luchador Press), is out now. His chapbook, A Million Years Gone, won the 2009 Nerve Cowboy chapbook prize. It is available from Nerve Cowboy’s Liquid Paper Press.