"To Oliver, Not Yet Born" by Bryan Borland

To Oliver, Not Yet Born

Listen, kid. I’m gonna let you in on a secret
I want you to put in your pocket and carry with you
all your life. 

You are loved.

Before you are even here, you are loved.
This family loves you before we know anything
about you, before we know the color of your hair,
the sound of your voice, or what the weight of you
feels like in our arms. This family loves you.

And this family will love you as much tomorrow
as it does today, in whatever future you arrive in
and exist in. No matter who you become or how
you grow. This family loves you. 

This family loves you no matter the choices you’ll make,
the clothes you put on your body or what that body
can or cannot do. We’ll love you through
wins and losses, good days and bad, mistakes
and disappointments, through every decision
you make, whoever you love or don’t, whatever
you make of this life that is wholly and completely
yours. This family loves you. 

Put this certainty in your pocket, kid,
or bury it like treasure. The map to it is in
your heart, in your memory, in the face you’ll see
in the mirror none of us have seen yet. Return to it
when you need it. Look yourself in the eyes, 
whatever color they are and say it like a magic spell
to summon us around you even when we are not there.
Say these words. Say,

I am loved just as I am.  

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Audio: Bryan Borland reads “To Oliver, Not Yet Born”

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Bryan Borland is the founding publisher of Sibling Rivalry Press and founding editor of Assaracus: A Journal of Gay & Queer Poetry. He is the author of multiple collections of poetry, including Brotherful, a finalist for the Publishing Triangle’s Thom Gunn Award, and Listen, Kid: Selected & New Poems, 2010–2026, which will be published on August 13, 2026. His collection DIG was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Poetry and was named a Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association. Borland is a Mid-America Arts Alliance Catalyze Fellow and a Lambda Literary Fellow in Poetry. For more, visit www.bryanborland.com or follow him on Instagram @bryanborland.

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