A Cry From The Womb Poem by Ella Yaron

I am not yet born

Keep me myself
When the easiest thing is to change
Everywhere you turn, tuts and sighs reverberate
Your entire self is squeezed into a ten centimetre 2D box
And stamped upon with red ink
That will never wash out.
An eternal dunce’s cap
You become a walking statistic
Hustled to a camera lens or shoved into the dark
A chorus of colourful voices suffocated into one mechanic monotone
Tethered to a never-ending horse mill
Day in and day out
Until, every bone exhausted,
Your face a grey, unrecognisable cast
All you can do is raise your head slightly
In attempt at a nod
And rehearse your lines
“Yes Miss”

The tent is lit with the rage of spinning lights
The audience wait in anticipation
As the child stumbles jerkily across the tightrope
The cheers float up towards her
Perhaps it was the excitement
Perhaps it was the height or light
But somehow
No one noticed
That the child was not a child
But a bundle of bones
Laced together with words of others

“You can’t” “No” “Improve”

“Surrender”

The crowd continue gazing up
Entranced by their own intricate illusion


And the fall of the empty child
Is never noticed.