Week seventeenth
I am any woman
The law assures
My damp conscience.

Week sixteenth
I am any woman
Without a partner
Inside a doctor’s clinic.

Week fifteenth
I am any woman
With a harmless craving
For pickled onions.

Week fourteenth
I am any woman
Holding a rose
To a slight bulge.

Week thirteenth
I am any woman
Hopeless and numb
To the whispers on the street.

Week twelfth
I am any woman
Hardly baked and yet
Resisting the urge to explode.

Week eleventh
I am any woman
Standing in front of a
Clinic with shortened breath.

Week tenth
I am any woman
Holding invisible evidence
In the depth of my gut.

Week ninth
I am any woman
Searching for a way home
While another builds itself.

Week eight
I am any woman
Guided by a light
To the shore of choice.

Week seventh
I am any woman
Here yet away
In a land of compromise.

Week sixth
I am any woman
Abortion isn’t murder
I read online.

Week fifth
I am any woman
Plundered and revolted
Mistaken as a fallacy.

Week fourth
I am any woman
Under the illusion
Of unavoidable motherhood.

Week third
I am any woman
Sobbing on a balcony
For a father that never was.

Week second
I am any woman
Tired and distant
Waiting for another way out.

Week first
I am any woman
I feel for the first time
A want for mercy.

Week seventeenth
Safe and stitched up
Under the bright hospital lights.
A future beckons
Of wanted happenings.
Of laws
For women becoming mothers
On their own accord.

Week eighteenth
I am any woman
On my way home.