Broken Promises

Quarantine 2020 allowed me the space to find this amazing adoptee community online. Listening to every episode of Adoptees On, I heard about Dear Adoption. I thought about what I would write to adoption and created this piece. I read it aloud on the first Adoptee Remembrance Day in October. It stories what I feel about adoption and how I’m working to survive it by speaking my truth and taking back agency in my life. I hope it helps you find empowerment to do the same.

Broken Promises

You promised better, I got different.

You promised a blank slate, but I had names, history, roots and genetics that you erased. You pretended they were not there, yet I carried them with me, hidden inside.

You promised a piece of clay to be molded, but that molding only left me unable to fit anywhere.

You promised love would be enough, but it was not. I needed my genetics and DNA to complete my story.

You promised a baby, but I already had parents.

You promised love, I got lifelong trauma and confusion.

You promised a family, I got strangers, loneliness and hypervigilance.

You promised giving, but all you did was take.

You promised a mother, but no one could mother me except myself.

On the surface you look like success, but the wake you leave is vast and you have failed at keeping all your promises.

I hate you adoption. I wish I had never been your pawn.

But I see through you now. I am fully awake. I am fixing your broken promises.