May 2018
Family, they say, who do you have;
and you go: mother, father;
stop cold.
The Japanese version of the word, kazoku, means siblings over all blood relations, isn’t necessarily inclusive of parents, is one of the few words where the Japanese version of it makes you pause over the English one.
The you, the old one, in 1st grade of the distant past,
she comes up with more names eventually,
and without much pause;
she goes grandmother, grandfather, (great) aunts 1 through 4, 2nd cousins here, 3rd cousins there, and oh, the 9 first cousins on her mother’s side, 1 aunt, 3 uncles, mother’s mom’s sister, other great aunt, her children — she loses count. (besides, her teacher makes her stop after grandparents.)
Family, they say, who do you have;
and you go: father (genuinely), mother (out of habit);
stop cold.
And the people you love who don’t love you back;
you are starting to gradually tear their influence
away from your heart.
Your grandparents; the alive ones (their names will come back if they stop identifying different with bad; will be torn the rest of the way off, like an infected limb from the rest of the body, if (when) they realize the tie of different to you.)
Aunt 4, of the open minded branch (if it ever comes to the schism, there’s a chance she might choose you - but you would send her back away, refuse to take away her grandchildren for her great niece.)
Your friends
(And this is just waiting until the day you believe it, because you’ll always be terrified to say it. Family is made, family is more than blood, but your breath catches because everybody leaves, and you don’t quite have enough courage to say it yet - will never quite muster up the courage until it is no longer true.)
Your mother
(because she’ll always choose you but never enough; always a rejection in secret because she must not know and you must not hurt where she can see you.)
Family, they say, who do you have;
and you take a breath
and smile like it’s not fake
like that word hasn’t been fractured beyond repair for a while now,
and dearest, you lie.
and you go: mother, father;
stop cold.
The Japanese version of the word, kazoku, means siblings over all blood relations, isn’t necessarily inclusive of parents, is one of the few words where the Japanese version of it makes you pause over the English one.
The you, the old one, in 1st grade of the distant past,
she comes up with more names eventually,
and without much pause;
she goes grandmother, grandfather, (great) aunts 1 through 4, 2nd cousins here, 3rd cousins there, and oh, the 9 first cousins on her mother’s side, 1 aunt, 3 uncles, mother’s mom’s sister, other great aunt, her children — she loses count. (besides, her teacher makes her stop after grandparents.)
Family, they say, who do you have;
and you go: father (genuinely), mother (out of habit);
stop cold.
And the people you love who don’t love you back;
you are starting to gradually tear their influence
away from your heart.
Your grandparents; the alive ones (their names will come back if they stop identifying different with bad; will be torn the rest of the way off, like an infected limb from the rest of the body, if (when) they realize the tie of different to you.)
Aunt 4, of the open minded branch (if it ever comes to the schism, there’s a chance she might choose you - but you would send her back away, refuse to take away her grandchildren for her great niece.)
Your friends
(And this is just waiting until the day you believe it, because you’ll always be terrified to say it. Family is made, family is more than blood, but your breath catches because everybody leaves, and you don’t quite have enough courage to say it yet - will never quite muster up the courage until it is no longer true.)
Your mother
(because she’ll always choose you but never enough; always a rejection in secret because she must not know and you must not hurt where she can see you.)
Family, they say, who do you have;
and you take a breath
and smile like it’s not fake
like that word hasn’t been fractured beyond repair for a while now,
and dearest, you lie.
because family is found. but you have to find it first.
