She was young when the verdict came,
too young to know how final it would feel.
The dream of more children folded itself shut,
a door slammed quietly inside her body.

Longing became her shadow,
grief pressed against her chest,
anger simmered beneath her skin.
She learned to run when the talk
turned to babies,
to hide behind smiles,
to bury the ache where no one could see.

Shame stitched itself into her silence.
She carried it like invisible labor,
like a weight no one else could name.
Her hands still remembered the
rhythm of rocking,
but the air was empty,
and the cradle stayed untouched.

She wanted more, always more-
but the wanting itself became a wound.
And in the quiet,
she held tight to the love she knew,
and the emptiness of what was denied.