Hope and a Mourning Dove 1
By Alexander Doe
***Warning for mentions of reproductive illnesses, suicidal thoughts, the over turn of Roe v. Wade in the US, and feelings of hopelessness. Links to programs and services that can help are at the end of the article.
Winter’s fingers creep and crawl
across the ground, soon to envelop the world in its icy
grasp. For now, the sky is a stark, cloudy gray. However,
today the sun stands unobstructed, alone, in a brilliant
azure sky. Dry fields are a dry, dying gold, as barren trees
reach for the heavens. Among these things, I sit.
Why do we hope? Why does the rising sun promise a new
tomorrow? It is easy to forget, to leave it all behind.
In all honesty, I used to despise hope. It taunted me from
afar. Some say there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but sometimes it’s an oncoming train barreling down the
tracks.
_____________
There was a mourning dove outside my window when
I was bed bound with endometriosis, and it sang to me with
a trilling coo. It stood as a stark reminder of time passing,
another small death with each day gone by. How I hated
it, though I never saw it behind my slanting blinds. I was
alone in my room, day after day, with a mourner by my
sickbed, singing hymnal tunes.
I slept long and often to escape the pain and loneliness. I
had long given up praying to a loving god, instead turned
to begging for an end to it all. Still, that bird stayed put, a
dirty angel standing guard, over what I do not know.
I lost track of time; my head swam in a haze that never
stopped the cutting pain. All I had was the rising and
setting of the sun, and a dove that I never saw. I could also
hear the world moving on without me through the glass.
Cars and trains, and children continuing on their business,
growing up while I stayed the same.
I was told not to give up hope, though the future seemed
rather drear. My waking hours and dreams faded together
till I no longer cared which I found myself in. It never
mattered because the pain always stayed the same. The
way I knew I was awake was when I heard the mourning
dove coo for no dreams could conjure what I felt when I
heard it.
Why did it stir in me a feeling like no other with its
common song?
My hair grew greasy and long, longer than I had had it
in years, while my nails were chewed down to the quick.
Fewer doctors were willing to see me, fewer people visited
my side.
My mother cried, my father screamed, I hated everything
there was to see, and those things I could not.
Why hope when it hurts so much?
The sun rose and the mourning dove cooed. It was cold,
but I smelled of sweat and salt. I gathered my strength for
a final visit from a doctor that would poke and prod. I bid
farewell to my dove through the fogged-up glass, as my
mother wheeled me away, my body limp with disuse.
I hadn’t been out for a long time. Fall had passed and
winter gone by, it now was spring though leaves had yet
to unfurl. The sky was a brilliant blue and the sun was just
starting its climb. It cast a chilling warmth through my
aching bones. Like the trees I wished to stretch my fingers
up to grasp it. Like the dove I wished to sing and leave
my body in a flutter of wings. I took a breath and dared to
hope.
The woman I met had hair the color of a mourning
dove’s wings, and she told it to me straight. I may not
ever be cured, but she may be able to slow the pain. The
injections I took would purge me of my estrogen, and the
endometriosis cells would cease to grow. That was the
hope.
“Hope”, there it was again, trailing behind me like
a lost child.
My bones could weaken. My body might still feel pain.
Much was up to chance, but I called out to that hope, to
carry me out of hell. I didn’t wish for much, but still,
I was scared.
It took a few weeks to get the first injection, and then
a few more to see if it worked.
It was early summer when I woke up to a flurry of feathers
as my little dove took off into the sky. I took my first steps
in God knows how long and opened the blinds, but no bird
was there. For some reason, I cried.
_____________
Now I sit here in the chilly winter cold, it nips at my nose.
On the electrical wires sit the mourning doves, puffed up
and round. I do not know which, if any, could have been
the one who, for so long, sat outside the window, just behind the blinds. -
A letter from the writer:
Hello dear reader,
My name is Alexander Doe. I am a queer, trans man with an under researched kind of endometriosis. In middle school my fallopian tube swelled with blood and nearly ruptured, needing emergency surgery, though doctors originally didn’t find anything wrong when scanning my body. During my first year as a high schooler, I was bed bound by pain and lost all ability to walk and take care of myself. Again doctors didn’t find much and I was refused the care I needed. After nearly a year of desperation, I found a doctor who was willing to try to help. It wasn’t certain I could be helped but four years later I am a walking man. I still deal with much of the trauma that I went through but I hold out hope, because without it I wouldn’t be here today.
In the wake of the revoking of women’s right to abortion in the US, I was afraid like many. It set up the path to revoking so much that I had fought for such as the right to reproductive health and lgbtqia+ care. Although things are still shaky all around the US, I stress the importance of hope. Don’t give it up yet. To silently suffer in the shadows of oppression is a living kind of death, one that leaves you to watch your own funeral from the front most pew.
About the process and Emily Dickinson
Every month I take a piece of poetry from a writer or myself and write about my and others experiences as LGBTQIA+ folks. The poet today is Emily Dickinson, a woman born in the mid 1800’s who many believe to be either a lesbian, bisexual, or asexual. She didn’t publish much of her work while alive, but after her death nearly 1,800 poems were found in her room, which she had nearly completely confined herself to in the later years of her life. She often wrote about death and her religious struggles, famously using slant rhymes and unorthodox capitalization and punctuation. She has been a great influence on many of today’s writers and poets, including myself. Despite her work revolving around such dark topics, this one always seemed to be a burning beacon of light in her repertoire, inspiring many to dare to hope, something that can be very hard to do for people like me. Writing for me became a big part of my life during and after my illness. It allowed for me to find freedom outside of my body, much like Dickinson did as well.- Alexander Doe.
Resources:
Endometriosis Links:
Roe v. Wade Information:
How the reversal of Roe v. Wade could impact the transgender community
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In the originally printing of Our Voices Heard Vol. 1, this poem was juxtaposed with Emily Dickinson’s poem, “ ’Hope’ is the thing with feathers .” ↩