Started Sep 25 2021
There’s not a lot to say that hasn’t already been said. It feels that way most days. It feels like a big question mark in my chest. I’ve heard somewhere, “There are years that ask, and years that answer.” This year answers, but new question marks are planted, moved, growing and shrinking with every “answer” that arrives.
I try to write stories that feel right: A story for a birth mother, a story for a birth father. I look like him, according to long-lost neighbors, sound like him too. But he got mean, angry and abusive. The brain is a fickle organ-- a few good hits to the cortex and our soul seems to diminish. Where did his go after the train tracks took his logic and empathy? He got up, survived. But who did he become?
Mrs. Lost Neighbor #2 says mother’s stomach growled so loud the church begged her not to have me. “But I want a daughter.” No matter the burnt hair, stifled speech, and a little lost brother sleeping outside some nights. “I want a daughter.”
And a daughter she got...
for only 3 months. In the below freezing season, she seemed to be told to go away, or maybe just left on her own. I tell myself different stories depending on which neighbor has the most trust-- consistency between plot lines of my family’s past.
I’m lost in the plot lines, in hers and his, in Lost Brother’s, in Neighbor #2’s and #3’s. I get lost in my own sometimes. The story is still all my own, but the overlaps look grim, depending on who you ask. My story started with my name. And I feel so wrapped up in that storyline now-- how it feels like a fun-house mirror if I look closely.
I wrote in so many journals, scattered my teen-bedroom. I wanted to name my kids after moons of other planets. It’s all a fun-house mirror.
There’s not a lot to say that hasn’t already been said. It feels that way most days. It feels like a big question mark in my chest. I’ve heard somewhere, “There are years that ask, and years that answer.” This year answers, but new question marks are planted, moved, growing and shrinking with every “answer” that arrives.
I try to write stories that feel right: A story for a birth mother, a story for a birth father. I look like him, according to long-lost neighbors, sound like him too. But he got mean, angry and abusive. The brain is a fickle organ-- a few good hits to the cortex and our soul seems to diminish. Where did his go after the train tracks took his logic and empathy? He got up, survived. But who did he become?
Mrs. Lost Neighbor #2 says mother’s stomach growled so loud the church begged her not to have me. “But I want a daughter.” No matter the burnt hair, stifled speech, and a little lost brother sleeping outside some nights. “I want a daughter.”
And a daughter she got...
for only 3 months. In the below freezing season, she seemed to be told to go away, or maybe just left on her own. I tell myself different stories depending on which neighbor has the most trust-- consistency between plot lines of my family’s past.
I’m lost in the plot lines, in hers and his, in Lost Brother’s, in Neighbor #2’s and #3’s. I get lost in my own sometimes. The story is still all my own, but the overlaps look grim, depending on who you ask. My story started with my name. And I feel so wrapped up in that storyline now-- how it feels like a fun-house mirror if I look closely.
I wrote in so many journals, scattered my teen-bedroom. I wanted to name my kids after moons of other planets. It’s all a fun-house mirror.
