Here's Why It's Not Your Fault

​It could have been the day of your birth when your grandmother picked you up from the hospital so your mother could finish the last year of her sentence, or because your mother finally came home and held you on her hip and pulled your body in close to hers so you wouldn’t get burned on the stove as she bent over to hold her opaque pipe close to the open flame, or maybe because the baby gate was open and you bounced down stairs to cold tile and your mother screamed a new scream, or how there were days when you stayed after school waiting and waiting too many times before someone noticed, but someone did notice, and now there are strangers in your home asking you questions, asking Mom questions, giving you snacks, looking in cabinets, counting your clothes, strapping you into a booster seat in the back of their small white car with the sticker on the outside, but you can't remember the last time you rode in a booster, maybe it’s because this first night in a stranger's house is when you realize not all homes have floors with holes you have to watch out for, the house doesn’t smell like mold, there’s someone to tuck the blanket around your body up to your shoulders, and that's the reason it’s not your fault you sleep hard and forget to miss them.