Ballad Of The Unborn

[E]Once there was a doctor who offered hysterectomies
[A]To every single woman who he happened to meet
[E]When he met my mother it was before she had me
[A]He asked if she would undergo a procedure for free
[E]That would free her from her biological necessities
[A]He said "There's too many people, I think you will agree
[E]And one fewer womb means at least one less mouth to feed
[A]And it's not like your children were likely to be
[E]Special or interesting or going to change things.
[A]It's an afternoon in pain for a lifetime of ease"

And that's [E]how my mom found [A]out that [E]life is not [A]about
Having [E]kids and she could [B7]do whatever she [E]wanted

Free from the strictures of her reproductive urge
My mother went to school and she began to learn
Everything she could taking each subject in its term
Her acumen was only matched by her intellectual thirst
But like anyone who thinks about it she began to question the worth
Of life as she is lived most everywhere on Earth
It occurred to her she could concoct an immolating cure
But "cure" in the loosest usage of that word
"Immolating" in the sense that it's the important verb
It's an afternoon in flames versus a lifetime of worse

And that's how my mom found out that life is not about
Living but enduring 'til its conclusion

It's a terrifying moment of existential clarity
Especially when it's mixed with homemade chemistry
But my mother saw it as her own responsibility
To save everyone as that doctor had once saved me
From experiencing the universe's grotesque geometry
The dependence of that experience on the last catastrophe
Are an ability to see ourselves as points in history
Unimportant as a aggregate meaning less individually
Always caught in the maw of our own transiency
This was the seed that became a stone and became cursory.

And that's how my mom found out that life is not about
Living but enduring 'til its conclusion

And that's why you should admire anytime someone dies
Or is aborted or in some way spared these lessons