Year 2025 Poem: Government-Sponsored, by Daria Jarecki

Government-sponsored is what labels are,
All because I wouldn’t sponsor
My daughter’s father—he reminded me of my own.
Though he tried to warn me,
I fled when I was fed up, had enough.

Determined to see a bigger picture,
I found myself ordering
A mind-altering pitcher.
Poisoned by persuasion,
I jumped aboard a sinking ship—
Rotating on the rosters,
No time for a relationship.

Full control of everything,
Even when flashing lights warned me:
I was actively malfunctioning.

Raised in institutions,
Fleeing transitions—
After the fall of the Iron Curtain.
Solidarity made choices—some uncertain.
Wasn’t it always?

Was I created out of love,
Only to collect rocks, stickers,
Bruises, and trauma along the way?
Gravitating to learned behaviors—
Who supplied all the party favors?

“We’re celebrating.”
Why? It’s a Tuesday.

Preexisting, rewritten,
Never sure when they’ll listen
To the whistleblower.
Oh, wait—
Isn’t that so-and-so’s daughter?

“We should help.
Work her to near death.
Have her find a narcissist.
She’ll be sure to get pregnant.”

This time, don’t let her get an abortion—
She’s had three of them.
Could she even afford it?

Get her drunk, fill her up.
Don’t tell her about the STD.
Guess she’ll just have to live with it.

So far gone,
Infiltrating every fiber of her being.

“You’ll never have kids again,”
I heard, as I held my three babies close.
Surgically repaired: one, two, three—
You’re left with one ovary.

At least you won’t bleed monthly.
No, just internally,
Depending on how this all goes.

There’ll be good days.
There’ll be bad.
Well, after the childhood I had—
A feather in the wind of bad beginnings.

I couldn’t go down that path.
A child with no dad, no mom—
Horrible odds, if you do the math.

Government or not,
I got the help.
Fought for the help.
Escaped my fate,
Rose back by myself.

An immigrant navigating,
Flourishing young minds
That, too, didn’t choose to be born—
But are here.

With every organ and fiber left in me,
I’ll fight for our sense of being—
Their sense of belonging,
To this world,
As human beings