Both Sides

If someone asks me, “Who is your mother?”
I answer without hesitation: “My right side.”
If they then ask, “Who is your father?”
I say without blinking: “My left side.”
If you ask, “Why?”
Let me explain:
If my right side were missing,
I could not sleep at night.
Because I am accustomed
to turning to my right side to sleep.
If my left side were missing…
I could not breathe.
My heart is on my left side,
how could I live without it?
Then you tell me:
“Sleep on your right side, lie flat…
Even if your heart is lost,
they will place another heart in its place,
and you will still live…”
I said: “I will live,” of course I will live.
But incomplete…
as if I were someone else.
Then I stopped and turned to you:
“Tell me,” I said,
“no matter who comes, no matter who they are…
can anyone replace your mother and father?”
You fell silent.
You could not answer.
And I completed the silence:
“No…” I said.
It was perhaps only one word,
but within me, a whole world fell silent:
No…