Orphaned

You didn’t enter a life that was begging to be saved 

They were fine before you came along 

They had learned the shape of their own quiet;

they knew how to stand on thin ice without breaking it 

They had built a peace out of solitude,

and they weren't asking anyone to build them a house 

Then you arrived, loud and uninvited, with a toolbox full of vows 

You auditioned to be their whole universe 

You told them you were building a home, 

and you asked them where they wanted their bed to go 

You invited them into a room built of soft promises,

handed them the brush and said, “Pick the color of these walls ”

You sketched their name into the family tree in fragile pencil,

measured their shoulders for coat hangers,

Do you know what it takes for a child with no floor

to finally trust the ground? ...

For a moment, the sun reached every corner of the house 

They began to forget the cold 

They began to believe that love was not a conditional loan,

not a temporary set built for an audience of one 

It takes every piece of courage they have ever saved 

And then, when the room was built

And the winter came 

It didn't arrive with thunder; it arrived with calculation 

You looked at the frost creeping up the windowpanes,

and you decided there was only enough warmth for the people who look like you 

You decided that blood, that thick, unearned currency

was the only thing worthy of protection  The crime wasn't choosing your blood;

the crime was promising them a place at the table

when you knew you’d take the plate away the second the room got crowded 

You looked at their hollow ribs and decided

they made better firewood than family It would have been kinder to leave them in the cold 

The cold was honest 

The cold never swore to be support 

You gave them a glimpse of a family

just long enough to make sure

the abandonment would burn