Dear Adoption, This is My Mother’s Day Poem

I miss my mother. 

Yes, the mother I’ve not met outside the safety of her body. I miss her. The mother I have never seen. 

We should be together. 

Adoption is traumatic and frequently unnecessary. 

Separating babies from their mothers is unnatural and should be avoided. 

My good life, according to y’all’s standards, doesn’t make it okay to have taken me away from my biological family. My own history is erased. I don’t know who I am or who I come from. I’m embarrassed to be me. 

          Every part of me reaches for her everyday. 

               Reaching for a her I do not know is tiring. 

But still I stretch and reach as far as I can.

     It is painful. Pain on pain. 

     God, I miss her. 

Dear Adoption, this is my Mother’s Day poem. 

Dear Mom, Happy Mother’s Day.

This piece was submitted by an 18 year old, transracial adoptee; a woman of color who grew up in the south without any racial mirroring or cultural awareness. She’s in pursuit of her biological family and an understanding of what it means to be her.