“I went years without thinking of you as my first lover. You were forgotten long ago, when I was left on that step in a public place, never to meet again.”

How honoring it must be to be my first lover. When my eyes first opened, I saw your face. Tears, streamed from your face, hopefully. Not from the difficult labor, but from the awful decision that had to be made. How long did you get to hold me close to your breast? How long did you get to indulge your motherly intuitions before being ripped away from your own flesh and body? Not long, I suppose. The government was encroaching. Your family was disappointed with you. I was too, but I didn’t know it yet.

Where did I get this innate desire for survival? Even as a baby, locked in an orphanage, I felt succinctly that I could not give up. My breathing now is that testament. Or else, I would be one of those thousands of babies, lying in their feces, giving up, and dying. Imagine that. A baby choosing to die. Choosing to give up on this life from pure exhaustion, pure desperation, and pure hatred of this awful and ugly world. Why couldn’t I have been one of those, giving myself the gift of death before a conscious thought ever entered my soul? To be sent automatically to Heaven before the age of accountability must be the greatest gift that Jesus can ever give. But Jesus does not love me in that way.

Instead, I became forced to reconcile with this world. To answer ugly, messy questions like where I come from and where I am going, and to whom I belong to. And to create tense, awkward environments when I choose to tell the truth. That I am from nowhere, that I am going nowhere, and that I belong to no one. But it is ill-advised to tell the truth, no matter how much my conscious screams in agony, desperate for escape in its darkened caverns. No, the icicles of comfortability govern when that hideous creature can rear his ugly head.

I went years without thinking of you as my first lover. You were forgotten long ago, when I was left on that step in a public place, never to meet again. You were quickly replaced by someone else, who, I imagine, was similar to you. Small, Asian, petite, tough, emotionally unavailable. And like you, eventually, she decided that keeping me was not worth the cost.

I do not blame her for having made that decision. I am only hurt, being the victim of circumstance. I was a child, severely disturbed and unable to understand the world around me. I was a child focused on survival, not love. Who wants to raise a child like that? Not her. No. She wanted something easy to dote on, like a dog. Like pampering a dog with abundant treats and colorful toys and receiving a bond that lasts longer than most marriages. After all, it’s a low effort, low maintenance relationship. But I was not that much to her bitter disappointment.

From that first panic as a baby, alone in an unfamiliar world, I lost the ability to love. The moment you let me go from your arms, love lost meaning. Its supposed origins rooted in familiarity, laced with kindness, and grounded in safety means nothing to me. I know love to be hateful men screaming at things they cannot control and driving their children to anger enough to break fists. Love is hatred and I see no other way.

When I think about you, I can’t help but to imagine that it was difficult to leave me behind. I can’t help but to imagine tears streaming down your featureless face. I can’t help but to imagine your arms outstretched as I was torn from your breast. And I can’t help to imagine, you, becoming cold hearted and calloused. Perhaps in the immediate aftermath, you wanted nothing more than to be near me again. To hold me close in your arms until our breathing synchronized. But you have made your peace now. For survival’s sake. And I imagine that you never want to see me again. Well, neither do I.

first published May 8, 2022 in Air Mattress Media

https://theairmattressmedia.wordpress.com/author/emmavawter/