I Do Not Have Children

I do not have children.
It is a statement I wear proudly, like the badge of honor one wears when they work too hard for too little profit.

I do not have children .
It is because I have meticulously laid out the reason why not to have them. I have weighed the joy of having a piece of me, a piece of him,
The most practical, yet caring person I have ever met, running around and have not been able to find this enough to put any part of myself in the danger that is this world.

I have sacrificed my choice to have a piece of me left behind because right now, I would not even condemn myself to the future of this race.

I do not have children.
But I praise and worry for those that do and though I have chosen not to have them, I feel the pain of the future like all of these parents do.

I do not have children.
Because I am a coward and I know my children will wake with  the same feeling of doom as I woke with, for I have always seen this worlds death, and always known it would happen in my lifetime, even as a child. Call me a cynic, call me a bitch, call me a feminists, call me a witch. But I live by myself and I hate that I love.

I do not have children.
No.
Because in all of this ugliness, all of us have had to weigh the joys of life with the numerical value
the world has given me and mine and if you say it was a choice, you would be lying.