The Night of my Conception

I would like to stress that this poem is not my fault. The last thing I want to think about is the night that I was conceived. And if you don't want to think about it either, please feel free to skip over this poem. But it was an assignment, so I had to write it, and to be honest...I found it really interesting once I got past the squick factor. So:

The Night of My Conception

When I ask her, my mother says
she knew I was there. She says,
I don't really believe those kinds of things - I think
they sound new-aged
and flaky, but...
she pauses and
with quiet certainty, she says,
I knew.

There is a secret, though,
I cannot bring myself to say:
the truth about the night
of that conception
is that it wasn't mine.

The little girl
with chubby cheeks
and a rolling grin
who was born some
nine months
later,
well...
she
died.

It was an accident - she was too
breakable.
She thought the world
was safe, and kind,
but it was not.

So. She died.
I was born fully-formed
into thin air, to the sounds
of a slamming door
and my father's fading
footsteps.

I was conceived by the smell
of alcohol,
the cold hard touch of anger,
and the warm wet wealth of
my mother's
tears.