son of none.txt
you sought resonance in a world where concepts of belonging had been as precious as they were sparse.
so few seemed to feel for you the way you felt, and just as few seemed to need what you needed at all. at times, the will was there, but the vacancy was not.
the image of family was so abstract and unapproachable for you. where many held a long-ago formed implication of what or who that image was of, you held onto a single old photograph. you could see a child-you shaped figure in the image, but just like the rest of the people depicted, it had been reduced down to a silhouette.
you’d spend countless days squinting at that photo, trying to make out their features, and wandering aimlessly around town, asking if anyone had seen or were one of these people - no one had, no one was, and seldom did anyone wish to be.
it was more than they’d signed up for. it was more than they needed, or more than they had the room to accept. no ill-will, no hard feelings, just no openings. a bad job market for a son of none.
those letters of rejection would pile up on top of you and you’d at times want for them to suffocate you. it felt impossible to live a decent life when that photo haunted you each and every day. it was difficult to appreciate anything good that you had built when all of those structures sat right next to this sinkhole you'd inherited. when would the rest fall out from underneath your feet? when would the world finally succeed in swallowing you up whole?
you’d never know, and so you’d sit there and mourn the loss of those you’d never known, and wait.
i saw you all your life. i watched you break apart and rearrange yourself a thousand times to try and fit the many hearts and homes that would try their best to foster you, then ultimately return you to the street in your box.
i would have held you together if i could have. i should have never let you come apart so many times in so many pieces that you began to come back together as something unrecognizable to even yourself.
i’m sorry that i didn’t stop you
i’m sorry that we didn’t stop ourselves
i’m sorry that i didn’t stop myself
it took me a long time to find my image of family in the world, as peculiar and unlikely as it may be. as many times as i was told what family is supposed to mean or are for, or told that my vision for this abstract thing was wrong or impossible, i held conviction and faith for my idealistic romanticism of life. i knew that if i felt all of the ways that i felt, that there must be others who walk the earth that feel the same, who lack the same, and who seek the same. i knew that someone must be carrying around something like I was. i just wanted to be seen and understood, and needed in the ways that i need. the people who wish to be sought for just as they seek, and for the reason they are seeking. someone who has been wishing you were their family, just like you’ve been wishing they were yours.
i could have been wrong a million times, but i only needed to be right once. i now know the features and resemblance that make up my family, and in that photo, i see them as clear as day.