{"id":2863,"date":"2016-11-11T16:54:11","date_gmt":"2016-11-11T21:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/iris\/iris\/index\/flip\/telling-the-child\/"},"modified":"2018-08-03T13:53:53","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T17:53:53","slug":"telling-the-child","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.med.unc.edu\/iris\/index\/flip\/telling-the-child\/","title":{"rendered":"Telling the Child"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

by Austin Hopkins, MS1<\/p>\n

\n

Face radiant<\/p>\n

No wrinkles brought on by unprotected summer tans<\/p>\n

Eyes auroral<\/p>\n

Not yet a witness to what happens between the trees at night<\/p>\n

Hands delicate<\/p>\n

Having never known how to load a syringe or throw the condom aside<\/p>\n

Skin soft<\/p>\n

No scars or sores or burns or ink\u2014<\/p>\n

I see myself in you<\/p>\n

Part of me is part of you<\/p>\n

I sit you down, I have to talk to you about something sweetie<\/i><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve dreaded this day since the double pink line, the seafarer\u2019s guiding constellation<\/p>\n

Choices that I once made turned into dictations sent down from Moirai<\/p>\n

To tell you that your body has been damned to self-destruction<\/p>\n

By something that I did, my mistake,<\/p>\n

It lives on in you, too<\/p>\n

There are no combinations of magic words to set it right<\/p>\n

Your monsters live in your closet (HIV means nothing to you)<\/p>\n

So a simplistic, oddly romanticized version must do<\/p>\n

Sweetie, your body has problems fending off the bad guys<\/i><\/p>\n

The stuff that makes you sick, the stuff your body is supposed to fight off<\/i><\/p>\n

It\u2019s nothing bad about you, your mommy gave it to you when you lived inside me<\/i><\/p>\n

We\u2019ll go see the special doctor to get you medicines to make it okay<\/i><\/p>\n

I promise, there\u2019s nothing wrong with you. I love you, too.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Maybe you\u2019ll hate me one day, but maybe I won\u2019t bear witness<\/p>\n

To the finale of the tragedy in which I briefly starred<\/p>\n

When I breathe, I don\u2019t always feel its grip within me<\/p>\n

But when I breathed years ago, I felt you breathe and squirm within me<\/p>\n

If I don\u2019t touch you, if I don\u2019t hold your hand walking into school, if I don\u2019t kiss you goodnight\u2014<\/p>\n

Then I can almost pretend that nothing\u2019s wrong<\/p>\n

But we were demonized\u2014 presented as the witches to be burned<\/p>\n

And once the little truth touches the big world, you will burn, burn, burn<\/p>\n

Because somehow what is in our blood makes us less pure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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\u2014 I see … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8922,"featured_media":0,"parent":2610,"menu_order":60,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2863","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","odd"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTelling the Child - Iris: The Art and Literary Journal - UNC School of Medicine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Telling the Child - 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