Twinless Twin Time Machine
TWINLESS TWINSTIME MACHINE BY ZHEN E RAMMELSBERG I yearned for you even before I knew what that word meant I had scars from you that reminded me of your existence I used to tell people about you and they thought I had made you up Today I return in my time machine To the time when we were each other’s secret decadent and delicious because it was only ours We
Dis/Appear
DIS/APPEAR BY HANNAH ANDREWS Shannon Pedroza is disappearing, but she doesn’t know it. She was pulled screaming into the world, slapped into hysterics. Her eight-pound existence was notated in weights and measurements and names carelessly scribbled and then carefully locked away. Shannon squeezes her wet eyes shut, and instinctively wishes this new world away. She listens for the voice that had swum around her, that voice that whispered, “You are Shannon Pedroza. Always Shannon.” I am Shannon Pedroza, she thinks. Her world overflows with isolation. She
In Memoriam
IN MEMORIAM BY ROBERTA HOLLAND The infant Sonya Marie Perry passed away, perhaps peacefully in her sleep or perhaps awake and screaming, in Bowie, Maryland, in the fall of 1969. The exact length of her life is unknown. It’s possible Sonya vanished from this earth the day she was released from Columbia Hospital for Women to an undisclosed foster home. Alternatively, the foster parent(s) may have nurtured Sonya until she was sent to her adoptive home six weeks later.
Beginnings
BEGINNINGS BY AUDREY B 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.”
Time Travel
TIME TRAVEL BY DANIELLE ORR I have brought something through time for you. No one will find it until you need it and are big enough to understand the importance of its contents. I have tucked it away secretly so only you will be able to look through all of the photos on one certain day in my past, which will be your future. What is it you ask? It is a cell phone.
Reunion
REUNION BY HEATHER LEWIS In the beginning it was calm. That first day was all rainbows and sunshine. But that second day, that second night, that was when it started. The soju bottle clanked on the small shot glass as my sister poured me another drink. “Drink! Drink!” she directed me. She was already mad I only drank two of the four bottles of flavored Soju she bought me. No one else likes it flavored but me.
Imaginings of a Protective Brother
IMAGININGS OF APROTECTIVE BROTHER BY ROXAN DRIMMER CHEN “The music is a little too loud,” I hear Mother say. She sounds as though she’s verging on annoyance, but still keeping cool. I reluctantly lower the volume, but continue playing my record. Having recently discovered Simon and Garfunkel, I play “Bridge Over Troubled Water” over and over, never tiring of it. “Again!?” I hear the kind, strong male voice outside of my room. There’s
Peregrine
PEREGRINE BY JULIAN WASHIO-COLLETTE “Go, leave your country, your people, and your father’s house for the land that I will show you.” —Genesis 12:1 I pedal around the cul-de-sac on my bright orange Schwinn with a banana seat, my first bicycle, diligently turning the handlebars in the opposite direction whenever one of the training wheels touches down. Little by little, I develop a feel for balance, tipping less often onto the training wheels.
The Letter
THE LETTER BY KELLY ROBERTS To my darling baby daughter, Mother wrote on the morning of my birth, in a letter given to my half-sister for just in case. The Letter was sealed in a small envelope, which came without a copper lock of downy baby hair in it nor a name on the outside of it. The Letter was written on tiny-lined paper with a dull pencil and was apparently ripped out from one of those mini-pocket spirals made in the seventies that contained words like: eggs, milk, or remember to darn socks
Not Worthy of a Name
NOT WORTHY OF A NAME BY AKARA SKYE I was not given a name when I was born. Not only am I simply listed as “the infant of” on the birth index, the space on my birth certificate for my name is blank. I was a non-entity with a non-identity. I left the hospital four weeks after my birth, still without a name. I arrived in the arms of my adoptive parents who chose the name I would be known as.
Longing to Belong
LONGING TO BELONG BY JULIE MAE PIGOTT Longing to belong I walk cold water beaches stopping to caress thunderworn trees branches broken and torn off roots tangled still clinging to rocks clinging to memories of an ancient time when I was rooted in another’s womb when the seed of me settled into a familiar forest long before I lost my way and couldn’t find myself
Announcing the ReBirth of Me
BIRTH ANNOUNCEMENT BY GAYE MCPHIE Reborn, reknown, rediscovered, reclaimed, reacknowledged, reloved, renamed, released, revealed, revalued, renewed. Congratulations! You have birthed yourself into existence. Here you are. The you who knows the painful story of your birth—the separation from your mother, your adoption into an emotionally abusive family, the exile from tribe, and denial of identity and heritage; ancestors and their stories, your name, your face—all lost to you.
Found
FOUND BY STACEY FARGNOLI I never wanted to search for my birth parents. It would be impossible to find them anyway, I thought, because there was no record of them. I was an abandoned baby on a police station doorstep in Seoul, Korea—my birthdate on a slip of paper tucked into my clothing. I believed the story my parents told me—the one they were given by the adoption