ines izar, eleven [cb]

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She gave me a new home and a new name.

She gave me her bed and three meals a day.

“I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“I don’t mind sharing the bed.”

“No.”

I want to tell her I’m scared of the dark and that the world feels safer with someone wrapping their arms around you. I’ve learnt that from experience, huddled under covers with other orphans, finding trust in places you never thought to look. I want to show her how.

But she doesn’t look me in the eyes.

She talks to me with a turned back and guarded voice.

She closes all the doors I try to open.

I want a lot of things, most of which she doesn’t. It’s okay though. I’m used to being alone.

“You don’t have a husband?”

“No.”

“Boyfriend?”

“No.”

“…Girlfriend?”

“No.”

She’s used to being alone, too. It’s okay though. One parent has to be better than none.

Really, I’m grateful. Because I used to only dream about being adopted – belonging to something bigger than me. I used to fall asleep with a head filled with cotton-candy promises of the future, sweet and airy. Magical.

Now, it’s here, bright and shiny and different, but still familiar.

Somehow, still just out of reach: she won’t introduce me to the rest of her family.

The truth is: I’m too scared to ask. But I don’t really have to.

I saw the papers. I saw my new name.

I know what I’ve become.

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“You’re going home, Ines! How wonderful!”

I thought it was. I thought it was the start of a new life.

But now, lying on a borrowed bed in a strange new house, my visions start to crumble; I can’t hear a thing over the sound of my grave being dug, a fresh death sentence written in permanent black pen.

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ines izar

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