Unwanted

Unwanted

Their eyes are glued to me like moths to a flame as I walk down the street. I push a pram, an old second-hand one. A baby lies peacefully inside. I don’t think the baby, of which I haven’t chosen to name yet, is very healthy at the moment. I can’t bring myself to breast feed her. Nor can I afford to buy food and other necessities for her. Instead, I just push her through town, hoping that she might fall asleep.

Life back when, when I was young and immature, was so much better. My friends kept me going, I was a rebel and snuck out to the biggest parties every weekend… and sometimes even on school nights. I hung out with a bunch of crack heads, people who sold me drugs and bought the strongest alcohol for me because they were of age. I thought, somehow, that they were my friends, people who loved me. They weren’t. Not really.

The reason why I push this pram. That’s why I went to the op shop and bought every baby thing I could find, at less than half price. It was all old stuff, things that no other Mom would buy for their children unless they were in a desperate state like me, and the majority of it near falling apart.

A bit like me really.

Let’s just say, most of these people who hosted my crazy parties, well, I didn’t actually know them. Considering I was too wasted to remember their faces the next morning.

I could have had an abortion, but I wouldn’t be so cruel to stab a person to death, so why cut a baby in half, something inside me?

We would get stoned and drunk, and maybe screw a few strangers. But it honestly didn't really matter back then. Now, shamefully enough, it does… with this baby. This little human, who popped out of me, and is living and breathing like the rest of us.

She’s so beautiful. So innocent. How could I put all my blame on someone so oblivious?

I don’t know who the father is. So, as I continue to travel down this street, in the middle of a small town, I realize.

I realize something so broken, so disturbing, so powerful.

My baby is unwanted.

It was in my head, but I never let myself come to it’s discovery. Maybe I’m unwanted too. Even more unwanted than my daughter, my five month year old daughter. My family doesn’t know about the baby, I think it’s because they found out about the abusive alcohol, the rounds of cocaine and sessions of smoking joints, and then I was pushed out onto the streets.

Pushing the pram, down the street.

My nails have turned yellow, my hair brittle and my skin speckled with acne and other things that I don’t want to know about. All because of my pack-a-day smoking, or more than that. I became a pro at feigning my age so I could get a fix of menthol, or even asking adults that I didn’t know to slip me some cigarettes.

I liked vodka, that’s one thing. I drunk extensively while pregnant. Burning my insides with shit that was almost as bad as sniffing gas. The baby, the little girl that was breathing deeply within me, was binge drinking just like me. She was chain smoking, having sessions every afternoon and loosing herself to illicit white powder.

She was my mini clone.

Of course, this wasn’t killing her. Why would stuff that can kill a 16 year old be able to kill a baby that hadn’t even developed properly?
Impossible!

Because, of course, that’s why I don’t push a pram at all. I have never even been to an op shop before. My baby isn’t even 5 months old. She’s nonexistent.

I had a miscarriage, after thinking how evil an abortion would be.

My baby wasn’t killed by drinking, drugs and smoking. Because that just doesn’t happen.

Does it?