The Sum of All Things
even now
you would shrug
and say
I don’t understand
what I did
whatever did I do
to deserve this …
I loved her …
but that wasn’t love
i know what love is
and that wasn’t love
i used to think
i owed you my life
‘cause you flipped through a book
and saw my face
and picked me
lucky me, right
you thought you were buying
a doll
an Oriental doll
and it made no difference if the doll
came from Korea or Timbuktu
you’d give it a Japanese name
‘cause you liked the name: Tamiko
but you never considered
how that’d make me feel
one day
how i’d have to explain
no, i’m not Japanese
for the billionth time
oh well, right
yes – i blamed you
for destroying
my dream
of having a family
an adoptive family
you only thought of yourself
there was a choice
and you chose him
you chose a broken man
who would break you
you already had a man
a good man
my dad – my adoptive dad
but you chose another man
who already belonged to
someone else
he already had a wife and his own kids
what were you thinking
you weren’t
you were feeling
lust
i was there
i remember
everything
but you never saw me
or wondered what that would do to me
i never felt like your child
you treated me
like a servant
who would cook and clean
for you
once upon a time i resented that
feeling like Cinderella
and all
but you taught me
how to take care of myself
how not to rely on anyone
else
you treated me like an adult
so i acted like an adult
i worried about things
a child should not worry about
i buried so much
stuff
and pretended things weren’t
that bad
but they were
weren’t they
they were really bad
wouldn’t you say
i couldn’t help you
i tried
but i couldn’t help you
i had wanted to save you
to save us
but i didn’t know how
i was still too young
to know how
i remember bringing you ice
for the bruises
i remember him pushing you down
choking you
kicking you
punching you
throwing you around
i was there …
i saw it
i heard it
i felt it
the holidays were the worst
i hated holidays
and summers
summers were awful
there was no school
in the summer
but for a few
there was a reprieve
when i got to go to Florida
and spend time with Gram and Aunt Cindy
but i worried the whole time
that you’d kill each other
while i was away
even sober the two of you were never
compatible
every breath was a fight
i’ll never understand
why you both chose to live
like that
day in and day out
year after year
in pure misery
pure hatred
i guess you both gave up
or got used to the trauma
i don’t know
all i know is it taught me
how to adapt and adjust
to anything
i know now
neither of you were equipped
to raise children
let alone grandchildren
i had thought maybe
you would both
want to do better by her
but you started fighting
in front of her
she learned the F word
in third-grade
not at school
but from you
and when you told her
you wished you’d never adopted me
she came home and told me that in tears
you should have said that to me
NOT to her
i could have handled that
she could not
the drinking was the last straw
i couldn’t protect myself
from the two of you
but i could protect her
and that’s what i did
i chose to protect my daughter
and put her first
TL