dominant and recessive
The entirety of my mothers family has blue eyes
It's a dominant trait, my mothers eyes are like the sky
My uncles are more like the waters we would go kayaking in. So on and so forth
My dad has hazel eyes. Brownish-green
The light hanging from our kitchen accentuated the green at two in the morning. Both riddled by insomnia and a love for peanut butter we would talk about everything the world had to offer
My dad was adopted and his orphanage went Roman candle. Records went up in flames, ashes laughing at everything we could never know.
Like his real parents.
I have brown eyes with a hint of green depending on the lighting or my shirt or makeup
In middle school we had to make a family tree, and I could trace blue eyes on my mothers side all the way back from stepping off Elis Island
Thyroid issues, obesity, manic-depression, and blue eyes
My fathers side were question marks
Half of my family tree is unidentifiable, roots too twisted and mangled to be known
When my father dies, half of my DNA will only live on inside me
Half of everything I am will only be found in the mirror, and when I die it will be extinguished from the world
I never want to have kids
It would seem like a punishment before they're even born, to give them these genetics. To hand over the DNA that I don't want, diluted by my partner
I was given my fathers eyes and hair
When he shaves his head in a fit of anxious impulse I dye mine red for the first time
Because looking into the mirror is like looking at a forest fire
And knowing that every second it exists someone or something is being burned
Sometimes I wonder if when my mom looks into my eyes she doesn't see family
But the eyes of the person she left
Whisky eyes, vodka eyes
A mouth like match head, words like clicking of a lighter, having this face feels a lot like burning
This body is a Molotov cocktail
I am a smoke detector without batteries. A fire hydrant without water.
I'm don't know how I'm supposed to put out this fire I inherited.
I am drowning in the sky or the ocean, a sea of blue that I don't belong in
That I was never supposed to be put into
When I was born, like all baby's I had blue eyes
Sometimes I think my mother never expected them to change
That or
She never wanted them to
This poem is about:
Me
My family