YOU WERE BORN FREE BY a.p. “I think being adopted was a gift…” are words that I never NEVER would have imagined saying out loud. And certainly wouldn’t dare utter in mixed company. I’ve learned that most kept people (the antithesis of adopted people) suffer from chronic misinterpretation when engaging with anything adoption-related. And there I was, just a few weeks ago. Saying these words out loud, for the first time. With zero irony and an ease that I thought could have only found me in this tiny Zoom room with other queer Korean and American adoptees who also mostly have estranged r ..read more

SAUCE & MUSK BY CARRIE ANNE TOCCI Sauce Since the pandemic, instead of hand-washing my dishes, sometimes after dinner or later in the evening, after I pour crystals into the small portal in the door of the dishwasher, I let the thrash and roll of water lull me to sleep, sometimes worrying plastic items might overheat and catch fire, because as an adult adopted person, like the younger adopted person I once was, I am always on guard, anticipating the unexpected, lying in wait for an unwelcome surprise.  Tonight’s dishwasher chug reminds me of the childhood routines I once counte ..read more

DISTURBED ROOTS BY JULIE MAE PIGOTT I didn’t see her because dragonfly wings are translucent. I never looked for her, because during the day, phosphorescence isn’t visible to the naked eye. My dreams couldn’t conjure the tangle of her thick ropey umbilicus that connected to my navel.  Like all children, my fingers explored the tattoo of belly button on soft belly. I mean, we all have one, right? Suspended curiosity followed me over the years. Eyes closed. Roots disturbed by invisible claws shaking off the dirt of evidence. This is the inheritance passed down to adoptees within a h ..read more

WHAT DID YOU DO? BY REBECCA COHEN Trigger Warning: This story alludes to childhood sexual assault. In second grade a neighbor kid invited me over to show off how well she could play “Für Elise” on her shiny grand piano—she even had it memorized. It was a beautiful piano, three or four times the size of the tinny upright at my house, and rich sound flowed easily from it, filling the room. She touched all the right keys at all the right times but there was no feeling. Though I didn’t have the song memorized yet, I knew I played it better. I would have played all day long if I could have ..read more

LIMINAL SPACES BY FEMALE FLEMING The gap between what is and what could be  is so wide and deep most cannot see  the impact of not knowing one’s true identity except for those of us who have lived this unwillingly I try to imagine a world where all adoptees are free  to read the first chapter of their life history After a decade of working to change policy I no longer believe in this possibility   The injustice is palpable Substantive change is improbable The grief is unbearable Liminal spaces are unsustainable Female Fleming is a domestic adoptee bor ..read more

TikTok BY JESSIE HUNTER One evening last spring, I was flopped on the front room couch participating in my daily ritual of scrolling TikTok, when a filter came across my feed: Which Brother/Sister Are You? I tapped to see the grid of bemused content creators sharing their results: The Smart One, The Rebel, The Whiner, The Animal Lover. Craving the forgotten rush of a Buzzfeed quiz, I tried it out for myself. The purple blocks of sibling titles, a clairvoyant roulette wheel, spun above my head before abruptly halting on my result: “The Adopted One.”  I let out an uncontrollable, di ..read more

SKILLED APATHY BY MARGARITA TROSHINA “Too emotional.” “Too challenging.” “Too much.” These key descriptors missing from my adoptee bio would go on to shape my personality, completely catching my parents off guard as the orphanage had failed to disclose these traits. As I settled into my new life, I sought hard to mirror my family’s innate emotional apathy, however I lacked their emotional baseline and every feeling seemed to toss me around like a perpetual bungee jump. I veered between failure to control my feelings and fleeting moments of success at merely being “just okay.” But fear ..read more

UNTITLED BY MATTHEW SPENCER how does a fly get to be what it does? spent my whole life sortin’ thru this kind of fuzz a dandelion of dreams floating thru infinite screams underwater naps calming all these habituated schemes i want the joy back that they all stole from me i want my great-great-great-gramama’s recipes i want to love hard but they made love hard cut it all up with broken mirror shards gift of god was the name i was given but the gods i know never keep shit hidden they let you grow and let you show and let your blood and life force flow i’m pretty sure that ..read more

THE LEAVES BY MARCI PURCELL All the leaves crumble under the weight of me. Leaves leaving crumble crumbling weight waiting under me The leavers crumble under the weight of me. They crumble under the weight and leave me They are leaving and I crumble under the weight. Crumbling under the weight of  all  the leaving I leave, crumbling under the wait. I  crumble  under the weight of me leaving The weight of the leaves crumbles us all. We crumble under the wait of the leaves I am waiting under the crumbled leaves. I wait under  leaves  and the  leavers cr ..read more

I WELCOME THE FALL BY DANIELLE ORR The doves and hummingbirds sang their songs to me all summer long, sharing their secrets and knowledge, and sometimes their sorrows. Even the three crows that drank water each day from the fountain outside my kitchen window are now gone. Were they an invention of my imagination, a figment of my desires and brooding nature? Have they gone looking for winter warmth elsewhere? If only I could fly with them, destination unknown. Murmuration is the feeling I can’t find but leads my wings onward. Never lost, following ley lines known to ancestors who wait i ..read more