Said Child

Guardian Kwan Soo Kim

I am not Said Child

I am your worst nightmare

I have spent more time with my adoption file

than you took to assign my random name

I know it ain’t all fact

so which parts are fiction?

Did my Korean family approve you

to write my Child’s Progress Report

or is it the unauthorized account

of my first ten months?

By virtue of your right as my legal guardian

you’ve proven you have no character

you have no integrity

you thought white people

could raise me better than Koreans

you must hate yourself more than I ever will

You will be irrevocably terminated

you and the rest of your adoption cronies

selling Korean babies

to white christian adopters

Yesterday I broke out with diarrhea

began to snivel with a cold

I hope my feces and mucus

left eternal skid marks, stains

on your reputation and conscience

My left thigh bean-size mole

you call a defect

disappeared

Did you know white American doctors

would remove it?

tamper with crime scene evidence?

you are the defect

not me!

Last night I began to vomit

accompanied with slight fever

you too would be ill

if torn from your family

subjected to trauma against your will

your recommendation: milk or rice cereal

what about my Korean mother’s breast milk?

why did you deprive me?

You say I’m too young to mingle with children

how the fuck would you know?

did you ever bother to ask me?

you are too old for a relationship with the world

You signed me away

at the American Embassy in Seoul

you must have been in bed

with the Vice Consul

how is John P. Leonard doing?

remember

the US embassy

is Japan’s continued colonization.

You certified a full, true, and correct copy

of my Original Family Register

but its full of No Records

false as Satan

how do you sleep at night Guardian Kim?