my heart's last pieces

the earliest years I remember

Have any of you ever been sold for profit, twice? I have. Once when I was four years old and again when I was nineteen.

I was forced to learn English, a language I now resent with everything in me.

My mother was a good woman; she had vices like everyone else and struggled to overcome them but she was trying to get better. She gave birth to me on a reservation; the same day my father fled us and refused to come back.

By the time I was born I had an older sister and two older brothers. All except for one of them has been dead for years.

My father was a proud Celtic Sklovikian with a strong family and reputation to uphold. He didn't want me because he knew what having a child out of wedlock would do for his very wealthy parents. They came before everything.

My mother was a beautiful mix of latina, Cherokee, and, Sue.  She later would be overcome with depression caused by my father's abandoning his family he claimed to love so much.

I even remember the words he spoke on the day he left us, "cén fáth a bhfanfainn leat? ní thugann tú dom ach rud a scriosfaidh a bhfuil cruthaithe ag mo theaghlach."
(why would i stay with you? you give me nothing but a thing that will ruin what my family has created.)

Those words used to burn bright with the hatred I'd once had in my heart; now I don't feel anything.

They came for me without warning one warm day and ripped me from the arms of a woman I can barely remember.

Yet, I still recall the very last words I spoke to her, "mháthair, cén fáth a bhfuil tú ag imeacht?"
(Mother, why are you leaving?)

Those people that ripped me out of her arms later that same day sold me for $2 million dollars. I was only four years old. Now I'm twenty-four and trying to figure out where I came from in order to find out where I belong.