Creative Writing By KSS Adoptees.

Here we will share creative writing by KSS (Korea Social Service) Adoptees. Please contact us at paperslipadoptee@gmail.com with your submissions!

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“PAPER ORPHAN”
By Zuki

PAPER ORPHAN

I lie still beneath

the footnotes of a ledger,

lost between pages of ink-stained conjecture,

where birthrights are bartered

and families get severed,

where babies are cargo,

and love's just a letter.

A paperslip

Stamped, Sealed.

Shipped in a crate.

A new name, a new fate,

a brand new slate.

A past now misplaced,

A life displaced,

All bought for a price

And sold with such grace.

I was a number,

not a name.

A plane ticket,

not a face.

A foreign-born, forlorn mistake,

A blank slate child

On a journey I hate.

I watched memories tumble—

Brick, bone, and blade—

Fractured foundations of a life handmade

From hands that hurt

And hands that prayed.

To an unjust god, in a porcelain phase,

Molded in fire and shattered in place.

I was a gymnast bent,

a puppet trained.

My own mother's words

Hit like an old chain:

"You're the ugly duckling,

you'll be beautiful one day."

Someday.

Just not today.

So I stayed—

No swan in flight,

Just jagged glass

That caught the light.

I tiptoed carefully

Through fault-line nights,

Because I learned that silence keeps you safe,

That love was earned,

That pain had weight.

"You should be grateful," they say.

They called it a blessing.

Said I was saved.

Said love has no borders,

but still took my name.

Took all of my roots,

Along with the shame.

My rights were erased,

But I kept all the pain

They filled the voided space

With whispers wrapped in legal-bound tape.

"Your real mom loved you,

but she let you go."

"Your real home loved you,

but you’ll never know."

"Your real name is gone,

but this one will do."

"Your past doesn’t matter,

'cause we made you brand new."

New.

Like a toy,

Like a product,

Like a lie

With a price tag stapled to my pride.

Like a storyline

Built on a factory line,

Signed and sealed,

And trafficked in time.

And I tried.

I tried to be grateful,

Tried to forget,

Tried to love people

Who drown in regret.

I tried to be happy,

Tried to pretend,

Tried to believe them

Again and again.

But I made a decision:

I will not be a victim,

trapped in your prison,

where I’m still nothing more

Than a number in the system.

A lost vision,

Lined up at death’s door,

A soul in a dark attic,

Still sparking that match.

I’m still fighting to find truths,

Even when my breath stutters like static,

Even when I had to disappear

just to exist.

I wear time like a second skin,

Stitched together with defiance,

With artistry,

With the kind of resilience,

That turns pain into poetry.

I’m still lying quiet

At the bottom of a system,

Watching my birthright

Twist in the distance.

A child misplaced,

A world dismissed—

Just another paper orphan

That never exists.