here lies two poems by Camille Scott
TW: child abuse, miscarriage, feeling suicidal, post-partum depression/anxiety, general sadness.
The Nursery
the nursery reeks of ghosts
this is ambivalence
a half/way home
on living
I’m happy now
I sleep enough
I cope
I hope
and still
A haunting finds its way
To the space before time
And plays games of folly on beliefs in living
TW: child abuse, miscarriage, feeling suicidal, post-partum depression/anxiety, general sadness.
Do they know?
Do babies
about to be born
to wretched mothers know?
Do they jostle, tense and wrangle,
the fear they sense seeping through.
Can they sense her disdain of their existence
Is this why sometimes they leave before mother even knows they've visited?
Or are they magic?
Do they assume the best, do they inhale sugar poisons as gifts?
Are their flutters
gestures towards
the child inside their mama
that only they can now see;
the psychic sway
of babies born
to wretched mothers
Camille Scott is a mixed-black woman born between Texas & Louisiana to a set of people who couldn’t have known better. Her writing is a reach towards the survival of love despite ourselves. A mama of color, she is keenly aware of the traumas that inform her writing. She hopes to do right by children and the ancestor she is becoming. At night she sits on chariots while trying to battle her fears. During the day she teaches little ones: mostly, on how to read with more than their eyes.