Do you have Tokophobia?

You walk up the steps of a house you don’t recognize. Each room is warm, and humming, and filled with invisible breath. It is darker than usual. It is less saturated too. The floors pulse slightly under your feet. You keep moving, but slowly…

There’s a noise behind you — creeping closer month to month. Small, insistent, crying.

You don’t turn around. You already know what it is.

Tokophobia.

They call it the fear of childbirth. The fear of pregnancy.

But it’s older than that. Both for mothers and fathers, it is a weight. 

It’s the fear of surrendering your body to a story you didn’t write. The fear of hosting a future you didn’t ask for.

In the mirror, your face blurs. You search for yourself, but your reflection has grown heavier, rounder, quieter. The skin around your eyes seems thinner, the room behind you swollen with light. A lullaby plays, but it is out of tune.

Everyone smiles. Everyone congratulates you.

You should be happy.

So, you smile too.

But a part of you shrinks, folds into the corners, becomes a guest in your own skin.

They will tell you it’s a phase.

They will tell you you’re imagining it.

But deep down, you know.

You are being rewritten.

Do you have Tokophobia?

Or is it already too late?

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