"No kids?" he asked, incredulous

"Aren't you concerned about preserving your lineage?"

I, too, am in disbelief of such a question

Which implies you are more concerned about spreading your seed

About seeing tiny copies of yourself running around

In a bright white picket-fenced world

Rather than seeing the recycled copies of someone else

Forced from one flawed system into another

With slim chances of escaping

But I can't tell you this, I don't wanna be rude

So I claim I'll be too focused on my job to worry about such things

That I can barely take care of the goldfish I won at the fair

That being a mother is something I simply could not do

Neither of which are lies

God knows it's true

And you'll shrug it off and tell your friends

"Oh that's just how she is"

"She's a firecracker"

"She's like a tiger"

But I know it's not true

God knows it's not true

I am no tiger, I am a bear

A mama bear

I am a mother, but also a virgin

But don't compare me to Mary

Don't you dare compare me to someone so brave

Because instead of everyone else my age

Who sees the world in technicolor

With hope and excitment and all that cheesy gunk

I look upon it with fear of what's to come

Of what could afflict any of my dear ones

My beautiful children

That may not have buckled their seatbelts properly

That may not have the proper helmet

Or that I, and I alone, will not be there to catch them when they crumble

Because I have lived through that before

And that is something I simply could not do

Again

I allow them to be stubborn and to release their own firecrackers

And still love them when they slam the door because what if no one else will

But do not think that this is simply for my friends

For my makeshift family

But I extend this concern to the millions of copies I have not met

Or at least not yet

I wish to cradle the suffering who have seeen things I have never dreamt of

Who know things I could never understand

I wish to take them, like a mother her wailing children

And rock them into sleep and peace

And while I myself have never experienced their prejudices or their "isms"

As a middle-class white girl

Hailing from a bright white picket-fenced world

I can feel their cries anyway

And I cannot catch them when they crumble

No real human can

I know this for fact

Because I have lived through that before

And that is something I simply could not do

Again

But there are people who have had to live through that again

And again

And again

And have felt repeatedly what I could not handle the first time

That one day, my hugs won't be enough

That I won't be able to console you without crying myself

That I will lose my patience and my temper

And wonder if it was even worth the trouble

And my greatest fear

As a refused mother

Is that the result of those feelings

Will transfer over to my beautiful children

And that it will cause them to crumble

And I will not be there to catch them

And that is something I simply could not do

Again