Once a month I have a dream
Around the time my period would start.
It often has a horrendous theme 
That pinches and tears my wounded heart.

It often starts with an innocent mind,
Where I’m happy and living free,
Then the fear I’ve come to find,
The beating soul that lives in me.

“How did this happen?” I think to myself.
“Not once has my innocence been taken.”
But now I am stuck, my options on the shelf,
Thinking: “Surely I must be mistaken.” 

The pain in my gut is dread and fear,
With the child within sucking my life away.
But I don’t want these feelings to stop the gears
Of the life within that wants to stay. 

Three options are laid out for me to see:
Abortion, adoption, or raising the kid. 
No matter what, we both can’t flee
From the fate ahead I wish to rid.

I am now conscious, my stomach now flat,
But as I write, I can’t help but think …