[Zoostory]

Hello fellow adoptees. I recently reread a love poem I wrote and was floored by its new meaning in the context of adoption. The craziest part was that the original title was "birthday breakups". I feel it evidences the role that adoption plays in my relationships, one that I've only recently identified.


Dave dumped you the night you turned nineteen
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

What bad form,
Not that I would know
I’ve never had anyone to dump
Well, now I have you!
Lately,
I’ve heard you make jokes about us breaking up
Jokes are like thumbtacks dipped in chocolate
They are sweet but OUCHY

You are a dream shaking on stilts
Sometimes I think that
Love is a lake
Sleeping in our laced fingers
That’s dripping through the
Faults in our palms

I see us ending like a black and white film:

This poem crumpled in your dustbin
You opening the door to smoke solo in the snow
Snowflakes are immaculate
They float
And are destined to fall

But if you end it,
Please don’t be like Dave,
To help you with this
I’ve made you this list:

Guide To Breaking Up

1.
Do it with compassion
Amplify the grace
That I see inside of you
And beam it into me for one last time

2.
Remember that line from my libretto
I said was inspired by you?

There is permanence in a moment of passion
That outweighs and infinity of seclusion

I meant it.
Don’t be sad
The six seconds that I hugged you today
Will cling to me like a ghost
Which will hold me for the rest of my days
You’ve changed my life for infinity

3.
Know that
I love you
I love you
I love you
I love you
I don’t want to lose you

4.
My life is a dry and dying desert
I’ve trudged it alone for so long
Now I am in an oasis

When it’s time for me to leave
I will not waste a second crying
I will kiss you
I will say
“Wow, you are the greatest thing that’s happened to me
Because now I know what love is”
Then I walk away
My back burning into the horizon

5.
Know that we are not just two ships passing in the night
We are two noble vessels that together celebrated the ocean
Thanks.

I want to let you know that I am happy that this poem
Is kicking the crap out of whatever Saeed wrote for you

Did you know that
When you talk about Baroda
I am fascinated?
I imagine your house on Church Street
And you sitting bored on the porch
Will you be thinking of what we had together?
I hope so because it makes me smile

When I leave this April,
I’m going to begin at your front door in Baroda
And as I drive to DC
I’ll have a bag of seeds
In the passenger seat

And through the hot June air
You’re going to look up from that boring porch
And to the east
Will be an endless line of cornflowers
So everyone who drives down the Ohio Turnpike will
See that trail of blazing blue and
They will witness what real love looks like

Do you think that flowers ever really wilt?
They may wither in form
But the mind is where they’ll grow forever
So I have a rose that’s richer and redder
Than cupid himself can find
Even he can’t forecast our fate together
But I’m sure that we’ll flourish even better
In the garden you water each day behind my eyes