Elegy for my Birth

December 23, 1985;

The day my family’s happiness was spirited away.

Its occurrence was beyond my control;

Like the mornings it rained for hours on end,

With no sign that light would break through the crimson sky,

And I can’t even remember it;

The way the doctor held my tiny hand to my mother’s face,

Long enough for her to kiss it,

Or the way crystalline rivers fell down my fathers face,

When he realized he would have to choose between,

The broken shards of a Samuel Adams bottle,

He had thrown against the kitchen floor,

And the miracle of holding a newborn baby,

In his weakening arms;

He compromised and chose to keep drinking,

The thick black syrup that rested within.

The only tangible thing I remember from those days,

Was a black and white checkered floor…

Everything else was sound;

Yelling, Crashing, Screaming, Banging…

Then silence.

I was too young to know love from abuse,

Or what color blood looked like when it touched the air.

I only knew grandpas car,

A blue Honda with a stuffed Tigger in the back seat,

The day mom urged me to crawl inside,

And whispered to never look back.

I did anyway.

I remember seeing Grandpa’s sullen eyes red from anger,

And Mother kneeling beside one of the car doors,

Thanking God that grandfather had come to pick us up.

There was a move to a foreign place,

That smelled of ginger and red liquorish,

And only one visit from dad after that.

Every Christmas,

Dad would send me a package with a simple toy inside;

The “E” in my name would never be connected.

A few years passed and all I received were cards,

With the words “I love you and I am sorry,”

Written sloppily within them in red or blue ink.

I remember thinking I was sorry too;

It was my birth that divided my family’s happiness,

Like a sand bank divides the beach from the sea.

It was my birth that brought my mom to cry rivers of regret,

And Grandpa’s heart to fold in two like a paper crane.

The years passed and mom remarried,

To a man with dark hair and narrow eyes…

I was never stuck the way mom used to be,

Just humiliated for being who I was;

The unwanted product of a misguided union,

Between two souls.

I’d like to lie and say I had friends,

But they came and went like the changing seasons,

Dying when I got to close,

Betraying me when I wasn’t close enough,

And killing my emotions;

I decided in those years that friendship was unobtainable,

Like my dreams of having my family’s acceptance.

Yet when I think back on my youth,

The only regret I have is not being able to justify,

The reason I was born on that fateful day,

December 23, 1985…

The exact month, day, and year,

I brought pain to the ones I loved.