Epigenetics by Shannon Frost Greenstein

                           Ffion Atkinson CC



EPIGENETICS

Jennifer Connelly said it in
The Labyrinth                 
It’s not fair!
But when she sold her soul 
for powdered dopamine in Requiem 
for a Dream  
we forgot that little girl 
so enamored with David Bowie’s codpiece;
who really didn’t understand a thing about unfair.  

They say Holocaust
Survivors
have DNA permanently altered by 
trauma
that their grandchildren’s genes bear
this damage, this evolutionary hiccough;
the very blueprint of life irrevocably marred
even generations later by the
evil
in the world.

My own
children
playing happily on the floor;
is their DNA free from
evidence of my childhood
suffering,
intergenerational trauma stopped in its tracks?
or did the CPTSD warp my genes so much 
that my great great great great great great
grandchildren
will house these blemished double helixes 
like a scar?

It’s not fair
that innocence is soiled by events
before it even comes to be;
and it’s not fair
that I was abused
when I should have been allowed to grow
and it’s not fair
that David Bowie died
before he was ready.

But life is still a marvel
and my children are a gift
To find joy
ecstasy
when things are unfair
is a life well-lived.
And this will not end with a Requiem.
​
Because our song is an anthem.

​

Shannon Frost Greenstein resides in Philadelphia with her children, soulmate, and cats. She is the author of “More.”, a forthcoming poetry collection from Wild Pressed Books. Shannon is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee, a Contributing Editor for Barren Magazine, and a former Ph.D. candidate in Continental Philosophy. Her work has appeared in McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, X-R-A-Y Lit Mag, Cabinet of Heed, Ellipsis Zine, Lunate Fiction, trampset, and elsewhere. Follow Shannon at shannonfrostgreenstein.com or on Twitter at @mrsgreenstein. She comes up when you Google her.

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