Where do I begin?

How do I end with you?

“Thank you for coming together today”

like all humans, 

I also was born

to someone, somewhere, sometime ago 

let me announce: 

“The birth of me 

as well as the death of a mother”

I started 

I ended 

I began again 

I kicked 

I cried 

she laughed 

and died… 

torn apart

“We survived.”

All of this is good news, 

we are both very much alive, 

breath filling lungs,

we conquered the day 

in adoption’s way 

separated 

at the very heart of beginning, 

ending to begin again

over, under, through 

we breathe 

as if there is simply life,

along with synchronic patterns 

Woe to the family maker!

Is God’s answer always, “Yes?”

Is it necessary to draft an obituary 

for the living?

My comfort has been with her missing, 

if I pen her dead 

perhaps that’s where 

fate is sealed…

A mother gave birth today,

on paper, 

mother and child

did not survive. 

They emerged once more

never the same.

Spending a lifetime

waiting 

for slippery truth