Opus

To the daughter I will never have

Darling,
On the day you are born,
nothing will change. The world
will go on, as it always had.

When you grow up,
people will stop asking what
your favourite dinosaur is.
You will understand, that words limit
a lot more than they express.
Everything you want to see, all
that you want to be, all your loves,
your anger, the sound
of the rain and Christmas,
will be confined, to fit and find it's place
in language, so that the people
understands you.
They will put you into boxes, attach labels:
straight, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual.
Male, female, third gender, no, it's actually
'fluid'.
Whether you sleep with a man or a woman
will be your identity. 19F/Bi, INFP,
Hufflepuff house, born under Libra in the year
of the Tiger. What the fuck?
How about you just leave her alone for a bit.
They will tell you what to think,
how to think it, about narratives and
structures and postmodern constructs.
They will define you, define your nation for you.
They will tell you to be more than your body,
only to address your body when they speak. Who
are you really? Are you the body or the mind? What you think
or what what you say, or who you
sleep with?
Let it be. You will
never be able to say what you want to say
in their words.

Darling, if you can help it,
do not be born.