Does This Pig Look Like She’s Sleeping?

To sleep or not to sleep. Is that a question? Really? It feels like it’s not an option. To
sleep, perchance to dream — as if. When was the last time I actually slept enough to
have a dream? Why does that pig look like she's sleeping? She's not. I am inside her
head. I can hear her brain. It is humming: “Stop sucking and maybe I can get some
sleep…errr…Oh, just want to sleep…whirr…I’d like to sleep…I could shake them all
off…but then they’d scream and I’d have to get up with them and oh what a bother, I
should have listened when they said ‘Don’t let them in the bed with you because you’ll
never get them out!’"

She’s not sleeping. I know she’s not.

This is what I was going to write about. The main topics the Mamas and I have
discussed over our time together include sleep, feeding, sex, and personal sacrifice. And
love. Half of it, the Sweet. The other half, the Sour. Sometimes, on my own, I focus on
the sour and I forget all about the sweet.

Yesterday I met with a friend who informed me and another friend that she had had her
fifth miscarriage. This came crashing in. It was not meant to be the focus of the meeting.
We had no idea. She had listened to me go on and on about my sleep troubles with
the Guppins, and our other girlfriend had talked about her relationship, home, work, the
usual, when this beautiful, busy, in-demand artist friend of ours, this gorgeously patient,
loving being, the woman who I have chosen to look after my daughter should my partner
and I End, just sort of tells us.

a heartbeat
we hold out arms
we hold back what tears we can
we grieve instantly
she tells us she thinks they were twins
we bow our heads
she tries to smile
we hold on
we hold on.

I forget about the pig. I forget about everything I hardly deserve the right to have. With
my blundering and accidental happiness. It’s not fair.

-Drama Mama