halfway

for child development senior year we had to choose a related book from a list to read and then write an in-class paper. k and i went to a public library and borrowed a few. i'm not sure how it happened, but i ended up with a book about adoption.

we can even say our loneliness is all our own
it's bought and sold

since reading in bed made me just want to sleep i went to the campus library to read it. i read the whole thing in one sitting. and as i read something dark and gaping opened in my chest and sucked me in. i started to cry, great choking sobs, and i ran outside.

when no one is sleeping it's so easy to drown

i ran from building to building, trying to find someone to hold me, put me back together, stop me from flying apart. no one was home. finally i ran into the english department building, searching for a familiar face, desperate. the offices were empty. so i went home and i curled into a ball on the bed. i left a barely-coherent message on b's answering machine. i still hadn't stopped crying.

i am so clumsy, tripping over you

k finally came home and b rang. they were gentle with me. with what i'm sure was a lack of adequate explanation.

if i wrote you, you would know me
and you would not write me again

before that i had never fully examined the implications of my parentage. i had always considered myself all or nothing. it never occurred to me that i was halfway.

my revelations are always so damned obvious.