an uncle—25% shared DNA
a grandmother—25% shared DNA
a cousin—12.5% shared DNA
I can’t see past Father.
Jack Bisset—50% shared DNA.
As if this is common knowledge
that somewhere a man lives
who genetically
is my father.
I can’t stop staring outside
to a light snow
inching up my windowsill,
creating a blanket between me
and the world.
I slide down in my bed
hugging a pillow
and repeating over and over and over and over again.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
I was right. I. Am. Adopted.
Sana-Friend ♥
Me: I’m freaking out.
Sana: Too much Taco Bell?
Me too friend.
Me. Too.
Me: No, this is serious.
I just got the GeneQuest results.
Sana: Is it cancer?
Me: I’m sending a screenshot of my DNA relatives. Hold on.
Sana: Holy. Fuck.
Me: I know.
Sana: That can’t be real. No. Are you kidding?
Me: I almost wish I was. But it makes sense, right?
Oh my god.
The other day she said something about not wanting me to repeat her mistakes.
What if she didn’t mean her. But, like, a BIRTH mom?
Sana: Did you ask your parents about it?
Me: I can’t. Remember when Bea decided to switch majors?
Dad shut down and stopped talking to people.
Mom started doing CrossFit.
And that wasn’t nearly as big as this.
I can’t breathe right now.
My heart is going to fall out of my chest.
Sana: Okay, stop. I’m coming over.
Me: No.
I can’t be here.
I’ll come to you.
I can’t tell if I need
to wipe snow from
my frosty windshield
or tears from my eyes.
There’s no way to tell except
blinking and wiping.
It’s not going away.
That thing that makes it
so I can’t see straight.
The snow.
The tears.
The pain.
My best friend lives in a double-wide trailer.
My parents talk about her mom
in that bad way people do when they
don’t understand something.
Sana yells when she’s mad.
Swear words are part of her,
like breathing.
And she pushes buttons
and parties
and smokes weed sometimes.
She doesn’t follow any rules
except her own.
We shouldn’t work.
But Sana champions everything
I do.
She listens to my poems before
I let anyone else see them.
She leans over my notebook
and whispers,
“It’s so good.”
That trailer she lives in
sometimes feels
more like home
than my own.
And her mom,
who my parents don’t understand,
works two jobs
and makes me feel like I belong.
Sana is my friend.
My defender.
My person.
When Sana tells me,
“It’ll be okay.
It’s not okay right now,
but it will be.”
I want to believe her.
But this morning
Jack did not exist to me.
And now he’s taken up space in my heart
so gargantuan I think
there might not be room left for me
anymore.
He’s going to grow so big,
my chest will split open,
and my guts and soul
will spill out right in front of Sana.
Then I bet she won’t tell me,
“It’s okay.”
Sana turns on my favorite songs,
and we use her neighbor’s Wi-Fi
to internet stalk the stranger I share half my DNA with.
But he’s even a stranger to the internet,
a single matched result,
with a private Facebook.
His profile picture is my only clue
to who he is.
A man with a guitar cradled in his lap.
Shaggy auburn hair, eyes closed,
and a tattoo of a woman
with devil horns
on his collarbone.
Somewhere there is a world
where I grew up sitting on his lap,
tracing my fingers along
the strings of that guitar,
and finding myself in
the father I don’t know.
Giggling because the mother
I don’t know
is making a funny face so I’ll
smile
for the picture she’s taking.
Maybe she’s got dark curls like me.
And writes poems
getting lost in thoughts
imagining people
she’ll never know
and places
she’ll never go.
To: Bea Koenig ([email protected])
From: Cordelia Koenig ([email protected])
Subject: I miss my sister.
Hey,
I know I haven’t emailed in a while, but I miss you. How’s school?
I’ve been working on my senior project. Got my GeneQuest results back today, actually.
Feeling a little down. A little misplaced. Any chance we can get a Skype date in soon?
Love,
Cordelia
When I was little, I wondered
what made me different from my family.
I couldn’t understand
why none of them
needed to say something
a million times
in their heart
before they spoke
it with their tongue.
Why Mom and Bea never seem to cry
at movies I feel in my soul.
Or why Bea and Iris have the same
sense of humor. Their jokes
a connective tissue
and I’m the one struggling
to think of anything to add.
And why is Dad gentler with me
than my sisters?
Why I’ve always felt lonely
sitting with them at the dinner table.
Like maybe this wasn’t ever supposed to be my life.
I know they feel it too.
The way they look behind my back at each other
when I say something that is too much.
Or feel things harder than they do.
Maybe it’s that they don’t understand me,
but it might also be because they know.
Deep down, they know.
They know
Beatrice
and
Iris
belong.
While I’m
the outlier
the piece that doesn’t fit.
the one who shares nothing
but name.
The child
stuck in the middle
of a family
who would have
been just as complete
without her.
I’ve known.
I’ve been waiting for
the other shoe
to drop.
Now that it has,
I want to glue
my shoes
to my feet.