You wonder, as you contemplate the world’s end,
If you had done well, done right, by your unborn children.
Your womb is no safe place for a child. You know this.
Your womb cannot make life for this life.
This you knew all along.
You told yourself you can’t bear children
That the flesh would not stick for long
With each blood cycle, you told yourself
Is it because you knew, all along
That you don’t want this life that you never did
That somehow you are here, because someone decided
That the time for you has come
By mere coincidence, you are here
And you could’ve never been born
Is it responsibility that you don’t want to assume
Is it the inevitable guilt that you refuse to carry
Like those that came before you, and didn’t know how
You wonder, as you contemplate the world’s end,
what life there is to give
To all those who are already here
Sara Mourad
Sara Mourad is a writer, teacher, and scholar. She is an Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the American University of Beirut, and her research explores the constitution of dominant and counter-cultural discourses on gender, sexuality, and the family at the threshold of private and public life. Her work has appeared in a number of academic journals, edited volumes, and media platforms. She is currently working on her first monograph, an intimate history of debt and inheritance in postwar Lebanon.
