Telling the Child
by Austin Hopkins, MS1
Face radiant
No wrinkles brought on by unprotected summer tans
Eyes auroral
Not yet a witness to what happens between the trees at night
Hands delicate
Having never known how to load a syringe or throw the condom aside
Skin soft
No scars or sores or burns or ink—
I see myself in you
Part of me is part of you
I sit you down, I have to talk to you about something sweetie
I’ve dreaded this day since the double pink line, the seafarer’s guiding constellation
Choices that I once made turned into dictations sent down from Moirai
To tell you that your body has been damned to self-destruction
By something that I did, my mistake,
It lives on in you, too
There are no combinations of magic words to set it right
Your monsters live in your closet (HIV means nothing to you)
So a simplistic, oddly romanticized version must do
Sweetie, your body has problems fending off the bad guys
The stuff that makes you sick, the stuff your body is supposed to fight off
It’s nothing bad about you, your mommy gave it to you when you lived inside me
We’ll go see the special doctor to get you medicines to make it okay
I promise, there’s nothing wrong with you. I love you, too.
Maybe you’ll hate me one day, but maybe I won’t bear witness
To the finale of the tragedy in which I briefly starred
When I breathe, I don’t always feel its grip within me
But when I breathed years ago, I felt you breathe and squirm within me
If I don’t touch you, if I don’t hold your hand walking into school, if I don’t kiss you goodnight—
Then I can almost pretend that nothing’s wrong
But we were demonized— presented as the witches to be burned
And once the little truth touches the big world, you will burn, burn, burn
Because somehow what is in our blood makes us less pure.