in our blue bathroom by candlelight and pink fairy lights, i had a bubble bath. i was alone in the house. in the hot water i felt my pubic bones through my skin and flesh, trying to imagine if there was room for a baby's head to pass through them. it seemed unlikely based on what i could feel but i knew that it must be possible, since that is what's supposed to happen.

i reached into my vagina to feel what i could of my uterus, for the first time since surgery. i had been putting it off, from fear, and understanding that it wasn't time yet. as my fingers grazed my cervix i was initially relieved to find that it was in the expected location, and felt just as i remembered. i reached further, past my cervix to the underside of my uterus, where there used to be a hard swelling that i could feel. before, it took me months to realize that the hard mass there was the fibroid. but now that is all gone.

in it's place, i felt nothingness first, and then, the underside of my uterus. it felt ragged. i recoiled slightly. i felt it again, like a tongue in the socket of a lost tooth. i was filled with pity and remorse for my wounded uterus. it was terrible. i felt like a bad mother. i pulled my hand out of my parts and put both hands over my healing incision. then i spoke quietly to my uterus, apologies and sadness for all the loss and trauma. i am sorry for what you have been through, small gentle organ. you were made for bringing only life and soft edges to the world. i did my best to release you from the badness. i hope you understand.

this most recent transformation is one in a long series of transformations that have happened within my uterus, vagina, vulva. i cried gently for the loss of something, finally alone to feel grief unashamed in the dark bathroom. there was a time when i held my vulva desperately after rough sex in my teens, one of my inner labia swollen to many times its normal size by the unskilled friction of my first boyfriend. i knew it would never be the same and i cried bitterly for the loss of my bare youthful innocent privates. now i cry again for the further unfolding of the personality of my reproductive organs. must they always break and heal? will any lover want to invest in something so flawed and so challengingly beautiful?

i just wanted to become small and be a little girl again, and not be fertile and the carrier of this tender wounded organ. i longed for the time that i sat on the floor of the 10th street home and told oliver that i would most certainly have the child if i accidentally got pregnant. when i would have been *happy* to have found myself pregnant. i was bold and could imagine it then. now after feeling my scarred womb with my fingertips, i can't imagine going through it. so much boldness lost.

my fear is so sharp. i know it is right to believe that i should be lovable in my flowering years, a year older as of yesterday, close to 30 and having done so many amazing things. i know it is right to expect that any man that comes near my incision, my scar, my most personal wounds and healing, should be respectful of the complex beauty of an older and interesting person. but at times i am filled with fear. mixed with hatred for men and their judgement. it seems that even the men who love me most completely reassure me of their love for my womanhood while their mere presence fills me with even deeper fear of being let down and let go. let go for being too sexually complex, too challenging, not pretty enough in this prematurely damaged state to be worth the time of a dick seeking fertile ground.

when can i ever let anyone near these hurt parts again? who can respect a healing wound as the wonderful thing that i believe it is? i wish to call megan or go with alana to wimminsland and bleed into the towel and be with trees. i certainly don't wish to spend more days on the computers with the masculine and non-intuitive challenges of technology all around me. i love oliver deeply but there are times when a lady must venture off into the forest truly on her own. when can i be brave and safe enough to do that again, metaphorically or not?

now is the part where i apologize for being so intense. except i'm not going to tonight.