I don't know why it hit me the way it did. I don't know why I felt an
actual pain inside me at that moment and crumbled under the weight of it.
I don't know why it's still bothering me. I don't know why I should care
about someone else's pink baby in a baby cage. Yet I can't seem to shake
this feeling that the world is a horrible place, and it sucks, and I
loathe it, and I don't want any part of a society that puts its most
precious gifts in a cage because they have no other choice. I think
mostly I just don't want to be here anymore.

As I walked passed the baby cage today, an adorable not quite two year old,
in a pink coat and matching hat glanced up from the doll carriage she was
playing with and looked up at me. The baby cage is actually the outdoor
play section of the daycare on the first floor of the apartment building I
live in, where the toddlers are kept separate from the bigger children so as
not to risk injury. For their own safety it is completely surrounded by an
eight foot high chain link fence and a locked gate to keep them in and
strangers out. It reminds me of the zoo. The excited voices of children
who have had too much sugar squealing..."Can we see the monkey cage?" "Can
we see the tiger cage?" Only, every day I walk past the baby cage. I
understand why it's necessary. It bothers me anyway. I usually smile and
wave and pretend like it doesn't, but I always end up with that weird
feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Today, little pink baby, golden curls hanging down from under her hat, blue
eyes staring up at me, opened her mouth wide and grinned at me. So I
grinned back and as I raised my hand to wave at her she said, suddenly very
excited..."Momma?" I maintained my smile, the two daycare works burst into
loud laughter, yet all my mind could process was the fact that little pink
baby wasn't sure who her mother was. So, maybe I look like her mother, and
maybe in a baby brain memory isn't quite the same as it is in an adult
brain, and maybe they get really confused over the things we take for
granted, but the idea that she thought Momma had come for her, all smiles
and excitement, only to discover that I was just some stranger passing by
was more than I could bear. I got to the other side of the baby cage
where none one could see me and burst into tears.

I don't know why it hit me the way it did. I don't know why I felt an
actual pain inside me at that moment and crumbled under the weight of it. I
don't know why it's still bothering me. I don't know why I should care
about someone else's pink baby in a baby cage. Yet I can't seem to shake
this feeling that the world is a horrible place, and it sucks, and I loathe
it, and I don't want any part of a society that puts its most precious gifts
in a cage because they have no other choice. I think mostly I just don't
want to be here anymore.

--
Rhi

I don't know why it hit me the way it did. I don't know why I felt an
actual pain inside me at that moment and crumbled under the weight of it. I
don't know why it's still bothering me. I don't know why I should care
about someone else's pink baby in a baby cage. Yet I can't seem to shake
this feeling that the world is a horrible place, and it sucks, and I loathe
it, and I don't want any part of a society that puts its most precious gifts
in a cage because they have no other choice. I think mostly I just don't
want to be here anymore.

about someone else's pink baby in a baby cage. Yet I can't seem to shake
this feeling that the world is a horrible place, and it sucks, and I loathe
it, and I don't want any part of a society that puts its most precious gifts
in a cage because they have no other choice. I think mostly I just don't
want to be here anymore.

I don't know why it hit me the way it did. I don't know
why I felt an actual pain inside me at that moment and
crumbled under the weight of it. I don't know why it's
still bothering me. I don't know why I should care about
someone else's pink baby in a baby cage. Yet I can't seem
to shake this feeling that the world is a horrible place,
and it sucks, and I loathe it, and I don't want any part of
a society that puts its most precious gifts in a cage
because they have no other choice. I think mostly I just
don't want to be here anymore.

So, maybe I look like her mother, and
maybe in a baby brain memory isn't quite the same as it is in an adult
brain, and maybe they get really confused over the things we take for
granted, but the idea that she thought Momma had come for her, all smiles
and excitement, only to discover that I was just some stranger passing by
was more than I could bear.