Features

I’ve got my mother’s mouth

My father’s nose

My mother’s father’s 

Or my mother’s mother’s or 

My father’s mother’s hair

My features aren’t mine.

My father’s mother and

My mother’s father

Argue over who owns my beard

Who’s responsible for my eyes

My disposition

My intelligence

My features aren’t mine.

My genetics are a commodity

To be bartered for

To settle disagreements with

My DNA broken apart

Every nucleotide accounted for

Alleles discarded

As unremarkable mistakes

My features aren’t mine.

Every pleasant interaction

With me

Comes from my borrowed

Hereditary lines

My elders constantly remind

Me that my genes

Are on loan

My features aren’t mine.

All of my faults

Must come from

Someone else

They tell me:

You must get that from

Your father

Or your mother

Or your grandfather or grandmother

On the bad side of the genetic tracks

Those features can’t be mine.

To break these double-helix bonds

Is impossible

This is how we come to be

What a con

I didn’t sign up for this

Ruse of humanity

I’ll gladly give myself back

In due time

But for now I must pay

For these features that aren’t mine.