Apology to the Boy I Replaced

I stopped driving north the year I understood their silence was a language too. My adoptive father still calls his cousin, explains my absence with careful words: busy, work, you know.

They wanted a son. The adoption papers
say so in black ink, permanent
as the disappointment in their eyes
when I arrived: all wrong angles,
a girl in the outline
they'd already drawn.

In the family photos I've stopped appearing in,
there's a ghost-space—
not where I was, but where
their imagined son would stand,
broad-shouldered, carrying the name
forward like a torch.

I learned to love myself in the spaces between their words: She's doing well (but not married) Smart girl (but not a son) We're proud (but)

The tree rings in that stump
keep growing without witness.
The ceramic tiles collect dust
in houses I'll never see again.
Distance is also a kind of love—
the love that says: I choose
my own survival
over your comfort.

Some daughters are born.
Some are chosen.
Some choose themselves,
finally, after years
of trying to transform
into the son
who was supposed to arrive
that day the papers were signed,
the day I came instead:
unexpected gift
in the wrong wrapping.