"The Bird’s Garden" by Taylor Miles-Behrens

The third person to walk by outside yells, “It’s the bird’s garden!” before turning away. While it may be the bird’s garden, the baby is in my belly, pressing up on my liver, which is sliding into my ribs. 

On a video call with my mother-in-law, I pronounce the word “Chiropraktiker” correctly in German – I just don’t say it loud enough. My chiropractor says everything far too loudly. I guess it’s because she rattles backs with a tiny “jackhammer.” I slide downward on the table, so my belly properly fits into the pillow’s belly cutout. I swear I feel him wiggle, but he’s as soft as good poetry.

All good poetry starts with a time and a place, so I set a timer at my desk for 25 minutes. I am told to refrain from reading the book now as it will evoke too much nostalgia and I agree. I continue to read about cults. How many 25-minute timers must one start in a day? Please don’t answer that or I’ll have a nervous breakdown.

I look at the picture of me and my sister in LA, a cactus behind our heads. I think, “Wow, I used to be so fit” before remembering I’m pregnant – this isn’t a matter of weight, goddammit. It’s a matter of one body growing a baby while the other was not. I will call you when it makes sense, somewhere deep in Prenzlauer Berg where it starts to look like Friedrichshain and there are no longer any cobblestones.

Some days, I cry about things that never actually existed. Like, hypothetical nostalgia – like, this could have existed, but it did not and never will. And this person could have been this way, but they never were. We may be in the bird’s garden, but the baby is in my belly, pressing up on my liver, which is sliding into my ribs. 

Taylor Miles-Behrens is a writer and adjunct English and creative writing instructor living in Boulder, Colorado. Her work has recently appeared in Fjords Review, MORIA, and [sub]liminal. She studied North American literature and culture at Freie University (Berlin) and creative writing at Kingston University (London).