Alanna

Where, Oh, Where Has My Baby Gone?

Nobody understands me, nobody understands what I'm feeling. Abandonment. Guilt. Anger. Anxiety. The greatest emotion, however, being that of remorse.

If only I had fought back more, begged more, pleaded more, I could have kept my angel with me. She could comfort me with the fact that I wasn't completely alone; that we could face the harsh world together.

I wrote countless letters to her, my precious Alanna. I apologized in every single one of them. Although an accident, Alanna was never- could never be- a mistake, no matter what the rest of the universe said. How could something so innocent and perfect be wrong for this world?

If only I weren't so stupid. If only I could've seen through Dunkin's façade.

Every time I even thought of his name, my heart quickened its pace, as if my body still ached for his presence. Although my mind told me that he was just trash, my heart yearned for him, knowing that he was the glue that covered up the cracks in the porcelain China doll that is me.

I laughed at myself, wiping tears with my sleeve. Me, I thought, being a China doll? My Hispanic background begs to differ.

God, I thought to myself again, if you could take me and give the world back my Alanna, I would be okay with dying. In fact, I would greet death as if it were an old friend.

But death was no friend of mine. It was the eternal goodbye, swiping away my baby girl, swiping away Logan, who died too young of cancer. Logan was a childhood friend of mine. He was taken from me only a few months before Alanna was given to me. I secretly think Alanna was God's way of apologizing to me for taking Logan away.

And now both were gone, leaving me alone to rot in both my internal and eternal misery.

Why is it that two innocent children can be taken away when nobody wants it, but someone as messed up as me is allowed to live? God has a cruel sense of humor. Why should I be allowed to live? So many that are better than me are gone, while I'm still here, as useless as ever.

I'm a murderer, I killed the one thing that could bring me happiness.

What was wrong with me?

Would I ever be able to hold my precious baby in my arms? Even in my dreams, she was violently ripped from my arms.

My hollow stomach held phantom kicks that woke me (when I could sleep, that is) in the middle of the night were an omnipresent reminder of the fact that I was the one who ended the life of the one person who could ever grant me complete happiness. I yearned for the sleepless nights the would be sure to come with a newborn. I wept for soiled diapers. Most of all, I wanted my perfect angel to grow up; I would've taught her better than my mother taught me. I would never have let her make the same mistakes I did. She would be perfect.

If I hadn't had the abortion.