“Pondering the reasons we don't adopt”

(a poem by Dorothy Bode)

I understand that you couldn't make room -
That there wasn't a place
I was not of your womb.

That my age was all wrong,
And my history belonged
to a place and a people you know
have all gone.

I see in your eyes that my life
was a chore,
that my needs were too big
my emotions to raw.

That you were afraid
I might never leave home,
or I might find anger
and by failure be known.

That my heart was too broken
my mind was too slow,
That the drugs in my system
defined me, you know.

And maybe, just maybe,
I wouldn't love you
my mind was too battered
too deep were the wounds.

But I wish you had tried,
I wish you made room,
For this one tiny boy who
so achingly stood

and looked in the windows and watched
as you prayed
and asked the Lord Jesus
to move you each day.

To bring out the family
that He had prepared
but none came forward
as I stood lonely there.

I understand, that man would say
my childhood has slipped away.
I have a father, this is true,
I know the same strong God as you.

But I wish that I had, had a mom,
a brother, a sister, a dog, some lawn.
That you had tried to reach me there
not left me to my own despair.

To people who were paid to feed,
and paid to wash and paid to read.
To those who didn't stay too long
and those who chose to teach me wrong.

I wish,
I wish that you had found a way
to wedge me in and let me stay.