Pinar’s Poem

I met Pinar in 2022 when she attended my postpartum training, Mother Nurture. Pinar shared a poem with me, written as part of her doula course’s final project. This poem moved me deeply then and again recently when I saw it for the second time on her Instagram page. It prompted me to ask Pinar if I could share it here on Her Place. For too long, we women have not been encouraged to honour our wombs ourselves. This poem may inspire you to explore the stories held deep within you? If so do share with us here.

This poem later became a video project that you can watch now on YouTube.

Womb Story by Pinar Aksu

For a very long time
I lived
Not knowing she existed.
While I was up there somewhere
She was down below in the dark
Silently waiting for my call
Quietly spinning the wheel
Like the old fairy hidden in a chamber.

I call her: Her
My inner knowing, my Mother, my Ma, my Earth
My Nature, my Moon, my Intuition, my Nest
She’s my rawest, truest one
When she says a word, it’s never a word
She speaks the language of symbol, image, poem.

It took me half a lifetime to get to know Her.
When she pricked me with her spindle
I ran away from her pain.
When she shut down
I tried to force her open.
And when she stopped talking to me,
I did the thing I know best: ignore, forget, and numb.

She won’t speak in words and sentences.
She responds to touch,
To tender loving care,
To deep thoughts,
To art and creativity,
To walks in deep dark woods,
To well-thought-out questions,
Seeking true answers,
To Motherhood.

Now that I’ve met Her,
She’s my Home.
At the ripe age of 45,
She is
my rawest, truest one.

When I was up there somewhere,
not hearing her, or wondering who she was,
She was in that dark chamber
Spinning the wheel
Going through all sorts of things:

A shaky home,
Guilty sex in hidden corners,
Betrayals,
Rejection,
Abortions,
Miscarriages,
Thrush, infections, growths,
Too many unwanted eyes peeking in,
With the cold metal tools rubbing my skin,

Longing for a baby
That won’t come,
Tests, injections, scans,
in cold, white rooms.

My baby was conceived in a hospital lab
And I wasn’t even there!
What they called a happy pregnancy
started like a sad, tired victory.

Then joy and hope took over,
Very slowly, very quietly,
as he was
finally
Planted in me.
I saw us in my dreams many times as wild animals,
A fox or a wolf and her baby, curled up under an oak tree,
Cuddling.

He came after a long, difficult birth.
It was all a bit too much at first.
No sisters to hold the baby,
No sisters to hear my story.

All that time,
Each scar,
Each wounding,
Each rise
And fall,
Brought me closer
To the stories she tells.

Now is the time to speak Her language,
To sit with Her and listen to Herstory.
I welcome you,
Dear one,
My rawest, truest one.

Here are the stories she told me:

Story of Sophia

My great grandma is wise and soft.
Big woman, big loud voice, big smile.
She’s not afraid of taking up space.
She calls me “Coppelia” when she hugs me,
A Greek woman in a small Turkish town.

When soldiers came and told her it was time to go,
She took her children and locked the door.
What did she have on the stove for dinner that day?
Did she know there was no coming back?

The day she fled the war was the day
She left her roots in the motherland.
Her breasts were filled up with milk,
As they crossed the border on foot. Her tears left drying
On an apron at the kitchen table.

Mehlika

My grandma is wise and strong.
She rose from her ashes, in dignified silence
Mother of 8: 6 girls, 2 boys.
2 boys passed away too young.
I keep wondering, how did the pain go?
Love didn’t shrink at her losses,
She loved her girls even more…
The bread she baked for her crowded family
Smelt of honour and dignity.
My grandma Mehlika.
Hidden tears shed on her apron at the kitchen table.

Emel

My mama is wise and soft.
I was created in her, and so were my sister and brother.
Birthing all her children on hard, narrow delivery tables
In white hospital rooms.
The daughter of Mehlika, Sophia’s “Coppelia”.
Beloved child, circled in kindness until she grew up.
Then life kept toppling over.
Falling for men who are never there.
Disdain and rejection spanning half a lifetime.
My mama danced in Freeze-Fight-Flight on repeat.
Pausing only when her children are there
To offer their shoulders to cry on.
There were no aprons at the kitchen table,
So she shed all her tears on them.

In your womb you carry all of me
And all our mothers and grandmothers.

In a single story, you tell
The story of our shared womanhood.

Me in you and you in me.
Welcome dear one
My rawest, truest one.