This is for my fellow adoptees,
for my community, for my tribe.
Because you get me.
You do.
We don’t know each other, but it’s like we’ve known each other our whole lives
even if my life is 3 times as long as yours.
The pain we feel, we don’t have words for,
those were taken away when society decided that our stories didn’t matter.
When we were taught to be grateful,
to ignore what we cannot remember–hoping we’d forget
that there are people, and papers, who can corroborate our dreams.
Adoptee, the ache in my heart reaches yours, and yours to mine.
Together they create a looking glass and through that looking glass, our land exists.
The 11-year-old version of me naively sees butterflies and rainbows,
but the me on the other side of that looking glass…
I see slivers of trepidation and prisms shrouded in old car smog.
I see unstable arcs headed for bounds of turbulence.
As I breathe, the smog enters my lungs
inducing an awkward, melancholic tickle in my throat.
As I look up, the arcs sway to and fro.
I get dizzy.
It’s the fog I am emerging from.
Adoptee, I got you.
Just like you got me.
We equate even though we’ve had to assimilate.
Our voices count.
1 by 2, 2 by 3, 3 by 4 … side by side.
