If I chose to have you,
I felt you'd be a girl.
You would wear tiny dresses
to cover your fat diapers.
Puffy Christmas dresses
for your first picture with Santa.
Little bows in your hair.
And my family,
God they would love you so much.
They'd buy you little dresses
that you'd scrape in the dirt
as you learned to walk.
Little yellow dresses
for your first day of school.
A tiny wedding dress
when your grandfather gave
you your first communion.
There would be miniature shoes
scattered all over the house.
Grandma would braid your hair,
and you'd have your father's eyes.
And we would have all loved you so much.
I realized late one night.

When things go okay enough
you never have to embarrass your mom
by letting her know that she messed up.
Things weren't that perfect,
but they weren't that ****** up.
Or maybe they were,
but you're still being tough.

Love is when you
watch a horror movie
with your brother
and you hate them,
but he asked you,
and you're hoping
you'll hold hands
like you did when
you were younger.
Love is when you
spend Sunday at the market,
with your mom
without her asking
because you said no
too many times when you were fifteen
but now you wish she'd ask again.
And love is other things too.
Like when you share a blanket
because there is only one,
and you don't mention that
your feet stick out,
because you're hoping he is warm.
And love is when you smile
though you're scared.
So that they feel brave.
Because you can't change the dark of night.
And love is when
Your arm falls asleep
And you want to move
But you don't because
They are sleeping on your shoulder.
Love is being steady
when you want to fall apart.
And love is sacrifice,
without ever asking why.

If Earth is living,
Breathing, and growing
Just like you and I.
Then it should not be
Sad, scary, or silly
To know that someday
She must die.

Mismatched socks and baggy t-shirts
we bumble down the stairs.
We sit Indian style in our chairs.
Mother busies herself between
the table and the stove.
We're having pancakes
shaped like Mickey Mouse.
And we're talking.
She asks about our dreams.
Little brother is four
and he dreamt about race-cars.
She smiles and listens
"What did you dream Garrett?"
The sun shines bright into the kitchen,
he blushes at the attention.
"I can't remember I'm too sleepy."
He' so beautiful,
its all so beautiful.
Then its my turn.
I talk fast and with purpose
I dreamt about trampolines.
Everyone listens
and then we eat pancakes.
Just an average Saturday morning,
family breakfast.
Because we were a family.

You shook,
While I shivered.
I talked,
And you whispered.
Then you left,
But I didn't.
And I tried,
Though you'd finished.

My mother was
a first generation lesbian.
My father,
a first generation divorcee.
His father was the one child
of a public school teacher.
He found my grandmother at 18.
A farm child, one of seven.
A painter, a baker.
My mother's father
a single boy to three sisters.
His aggressive masculinity
kept the line clear and thick.
He found my mother's mother at 17.
A middle of seven Pentecostal children.
A beauty queen, an agoraphobic.
Each had five children.
The door-to-door salesmen/
homemaker and mother of boys duo
bet it all to open a hobby shop.
They were by far the poorest of the
watermelon farming siblings.
They were artists and explorers.
The high school graduate and ladies man,
was a logger before a father.
And the single mother of 25 he left
scarcely left her home at all.
Neither pair made it big.
But they made my father.
A lonely, post middle aged man.
The poorest of his brothers.
A used to be pilot,
and could have been teacher,
a want to be pioneer.
A nuclear family super fan
who never got his way.
And they made my mother.
A nervous, eccentric hippie
who doesn't know how to talk to her siblings.
A woman working her *** off to excel at lower middle class.
A builder, a fighter, a **** good mother.
Even if accidentally so.
She has plans to travel.
He has dreams to live by a lake.
And they made me.
A single girl among three boys.
A quirky, nervous tomboy.
A thinker, a gardener, a climber.
A loser and a dreamer by blood.