Daughter of the Moon

Photo courtesy of Jun Jun.

By Jun Jun (she/her)
Adoptee, 20
From Nanning, Guangxi; Living in Barcelona, Spain

they called me sensitive
as if it were a flaw,
as if my tears
were too much,
as if my silence
weighed more than their voices.

I learned early
to hide the emptiness,
to pretend I was playing,
to disguise loneliness
as anything else.

no one noticed
that every word
broke me a little inside,
that every argument
left me more alone
than the one before.

and when everyone slept,
I looked at the moon.

I looked at it and thought:
there you are.
you see it too.
that light is the only thing
they haven’t taken from us.

I asked you questions
you never answered:
did you hold me?
did you cry?
does it still hurt?
do you think of me on my birthday?

and I whispered to you
in the middle of the night:
I’m alive.
I’m here.
and even though you didn’t love me,
I still love you.

the stories
others tell with pride
hurt me
those stories of trips and adoptions,
of planes and smiles,
when for me they were wounds,
roots left behind,
a language lost,
a name that never came back.

it’s easy, for them,
to love me like this:
white in their arms,
silent in their world.
it has been harder me
to love this life,
to learn to live it
with empty hands.

and yet,
every night I still look
for the moon.
because somewhere,
maybe you are still
looking for me too.

The views expressed in blog posts reflect those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the shared views of Nanchang Project as a whole.

---

Our blog stories come from readers like you!
We invite you to send us your own story to share. We accept submissions from anyone whose life may have been touched by Chinese international adoption including, but not limited to: adoptees, adoptive families, birth families, friends, searchers.
Details in the link below!