Memory Before Breath

Author’s Note

This poem is a surreal exploration of a moment between life and consciousness, a newborn’s resistance to the world he’s been born into. Though imagined, it asks haunting questions: what if some souls know what’s ahead before they begin? What if they fear the damage they might cause or the pain they might endure? Through the voice of an unseen speaker and a baby who remembers too much, I wanted to explore themes of fate, regret, spiritual knowing, and the tragedy of innocence disrupted. It’s about fear. It’s about knowing. And it’s about the quiet grief of powerlessness in the face of what we can’t change.

I hear the sound of a crying baby from afar.

I hear the notes it hits before it drops down an octave,

only to begin again.

My ears wrestle with the meaning

“Not Her… please send me back.”

His little legs kicked and punched,

struggling with the arms that held him.

I couldn’t decipher what was wrong.

He seemed almost ready to crawl back into his mother’s womb.

Strangely, he seemed to stop crying as I set my gaze upon him.

His deep black pools stared back at me.

I was at a loss,

for he had a gaze of one who had cheated the times

knowing and elusive at the same time.

I held him in my arms, and he continued to stare.

How do I ask him… what do you want to tell me?

How can I understand you?

And then a voice.

“I do not want to hurt her.”

The voice was of a little boy,

but the mouth of the crying baby never moved an inch.

No, this voice came from his chest.

It said again, faintly,

“Send me back… I do not want to hurt her.”

“Hurt who?” I ask.

Everyone in the operating room seems baffled at the sudden development.

I can imagine what’s running through their minds —

“Who on earth is she talking to?”

“Is she well in the head?”

He speaks again, pulling my attention to him.

“They know I’m here. I do not want to hurt her. Send me back.”

His eyes begin to tear up again.

I’ve never seen a baby look so sad.

He seemed to carry the weight of the world

on his barely formed shoulders.

He stared deeply into my eyes

pleading eyes that I could not look away from.

How do I tell him there’s nothing I could do?

So I replied:

“How about if you hide, till you’re strong enough to defeat them?”

He shook his head, oh so delicately.

A baby should not be able to do that.

And he said, almost resignedly

like an aged man who has seen all there is to come and will be

he stared back at me and said:

“They won’t let me live till I’m strong enough.”

The nurse then walked into the room and took the baby from my arms.

I couldn’t move.

I couldn’t breathe.

His words kept ringing in my head:

“They won’t let me live…”

__ Laurel