I was born because my father didn’t accept no for an answer.
I was born because my mother carried me to term to prove a point
instead of pressing charges that no one else would have believed anyway.
I was born because the doctor said my irregular heartbeat
made me lucky to be alive as I slid, soaking wet and bloody, out of the crime scene
of my mother’s womb, a crime scene wrapped in yellow caution tape with the words
No matterwhat you think, I wasn’t asking for it painted in black ink.
I was born because after a stabbing, you can always pull the knife out of the wall,
because somewhere, somehow, a tornado keeps a serial drunk driver home instead
of out on the streets killing innocent people, people like me who were the product of
I don’t want you tonight, don’t hurt me and Of course you do, I’m your husband.
I was born because somehow, there are still miracles.
At night when I sneak out of the house the bickering of cicadas
ricochets inside my bones like an arrow from a slingshot I can never return;
when I stay out past curfew to meet unknown boys at bars I always do a doubletake:
first glance to check out their hips, the second to make sure they don’t look like my father.
When I kiss someone I always check their back pockets for a condom first;
I fill out my college applications with “parent 2: deceased” because he is dead to me.
I’ve always admired teachers because they ask first instead of forcing me
into a question I don’t want to answer, like my mother was.
Health class never taught me how to grow up sharing half the DNA
of someone who thought ”making love” meant making his wife open up
when all she wanted was to shut the door and lock it twice.
I was born because string theory is easier to explain than the looks
on strangers’ faces when they ask my mother why she would ever
want to give birth to a reminder of her own tragedy.
I was born because my misogynist neighbor said the worst thing
I could grow up to be was my mother.
I was born because it was actually my father.