Never Was
Holly Day

There was a baby that should have been born
before me, it was the baby
that made my father marry my mother
the baby that trapped them together.
The baby disappeared soon after the wedding
lost in the inconsolable melancholy
that never left my mother’s eyes.

​I used to imagine what it would have been like
to have had that older brother or sister
around, if it would have made me stronger
having an older sibling to protect me
if my parents would have been happier
if there had been two of us, not just me.