Myself – a Stranger
Leeza
A child’s story starts:
Two come together to give life to another. They become parents as the child is welcomed into the world.
I was welcomed into a world of poverty and of the unprivileged. Born to Baby Home no. 1 – one for those without willing parents. The orphanage took me in like they were expecting me.
I was given a name and given up. I live my life like I try not to blame her.
But I understand what it’s like to feel like you were left. Like whatever you had to give to the world wasn’t enough to be worth it. I feel hints of the maternal instinct And I feel hit knowing there was a woman out there who was stronger than it That she could dismiss it just enough to forget it. I understand that I can’t hold hate in my heart for her and I go on pretending that I can try to forget her. I never met her. Who she is to me is someone I’ve painted. My art is black and white but when my brushstrokes outline her silhouette she’s red. And I apologize to her for painting her into someone I could hate before I knew her. Before I could realize desire to have control of my body and reproduction. To understand the fear of feeling burdened with a child and unable to care for it. To understand why she couldn’t take care of her baby. Why she couldn’t raise a child ill and impoverished and on her own. She bore no obligation to raise a child. Not while she couldn’t care for herself.
And I think of her, and I forgive her. But I think of her daughter, and I forget her.
To her daughter:
I’ve heard of you and that you existed. But you’re not around anymore. I’ve been told I met you when you were. But I tell myself I dismissed you too soon. My brain too young to realize this is something I wanted to remember. I am left with something I cannot remember. I have had moments that feel almost tangible As if somewhere you still exist in a place where I can find you. I am searching for you in the darkness I left behind with you.
You stopped growing at one and a half
To become someone else entirely. I wonder this about you:
How do we have the same heart
When I’ve lived this life never hearing your heart beating
How can you tell me your experiences are mine when the memories aren’t there
That I grew and survived that place
When I can’t remember any of the pain. I don’t know the pain you went through That pain isn’t mine. It is yours and I left it with the memory of you to bear it. I’ve walked this life to iron gates I can scale towards the skies to climb past it. To follow the blinding red white and blue to the South to move on. You’re still sitting by that gate. Your hands too small to wrap the cold metal bars
Your strength too gone to be spoken of to pull yourself out of this. And you sit there alone
With no one caring to remember you
Leeza hear me tell you – I remember you. And I ignored you, so I didn’t have to think about you or how I felt, But you are a part of me I cannot dismiss. Built into the foundation. You have affected me more than you know. I know you used to worry you were forgotten and unwanted I felt it too. And I took it out on your mother, and on you.
And you were young, and confused and unaware.
You didn’t deserve the hate I spread from Mother to You.
You share the same blood as her
I share the same blood as you – I used to wish it into a crimson grave
Where I could bury that which I carry and lay you down next to it. The only way I can truly let you go is to lose myself. I could put it behind me and close the gates.
I could put you – this – her – all of it behind me.
And everything I feel now wouldn’t be real anymore. But how can I complain now when I know you had it worse? How can I dare speak of troubles when none of them hold the same weight as what would have been? I know I cannot dismiss my emotions on behalf of others – pain is pain.
But you are not another.
You are the alternative life I could’ve lived.
A seedling growing in the cracks of the cement.
It’s home burdening it from the beginning.
It has no room to grow out from the nowhere where it started.
You are not nowhere.
You are left across the ocean in a country that is somewhere.
With culture to speak of and a language with so much beauty it can silence the gods.
It dares others eavesdrop onto its beauty.
And leaves others to fear it for the power they know brews deep inside it.
This place is a part of you.
And over 97% is a part of me.
It built you and the connection I feel to it built me.
The connection I feel to you astonishes me. I feel connected only by birth and only by name.
A name I don’t get the luxury of hearing it off other people’s tongues.
I hear them try and I’ll never correct them for saying it wrong
Because they’ve worked so hard at it and it’s been so long.
The syllables get caught in their mouth
Tangled like a spiderweb
They walk right through me
They tear right through it.
When they feel the thin silk
The thin thread of the parts of myself I hold onto
They swat it away
Thrash and pull it off of them
Because it doesn’t deserve to be here
I don’t deserve to be here in any part that remains of me.
Because I am not her And I have been raised to have a separate identity.
One that is from here
And I will always be thankful for here and what this life has gifted me,
For the people who took it upon themselves to raise a child who had no one.
I have found love in this life.
But Leeza,
I will always be thankful for you.
Leeza,
Я цябе кахаю.
This is for the brother who didn’t get the chance to be raised with us. The other who never got the chance to be born. The father who might not know he’s a father Or simply might not have wanted to be.
This is for all you could have become. All you have become. For all you have endured.
And for going through what you did even if I cannot know what you went through.
I cannot know the burdens and anxieties that has caused you,
But believe me when I can say I felt the aftermath of them too.
Leeza,
I am here and I am waiting
I cannot answer you tonight
But I am listening for your calling.
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