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Jordan E. Franklin

ex-wife’s kid

noun

  1. How you and your brothers were introduced to your father’s acquaintances.
    “hi, oh these are my ex-wife’s kids”
  2. Your nickname/title for over 18 years, from the ages of 5-23.
    synonyms: mistake, not-my-problem, weekend child, child support, first-born
  3. A hint that your father still has issues about the separation.
    See Also: conditional love
  4. A term accepted by a little kid.
    Synonyms: self-blame
  5. The bile you smother in your stomach every time you are with your old man.
    See Also: makes you want to put your skin through a cheese grater
  6. One of the first things that leave your mouth when you come clean to your mom at twenty-eight.

 

Origin of ex-wife’s kid

 

Single father, first came into existence ca.1995
Became obsolete ca.2013
Reintroduced into the lexicon ca.2018

 

Antonyms

  1. Wanted child
Jordan E. Franklin is a Black poet from Brooklyn, NY. An alumna of Brooklyn College, she earned her MFA from Stony Brook Southampton where she served as a Turner Fellow. Her work has appeared in the Southampton Review, Breadcrumbs, easy paradise, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, Frontier Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She is the winner of the 2017 James Hearst Poetry Prize offered by the North American Review, and a finalist of both the 2018 Nightjar Review Poetry Contest, and the 2019 Furious Flower Poetry Prize. 

Her first poetry collection, when the signals come home, was selected as the winner of the 2020 Gatewood Prize and will be published by Switchback Books in Spring 2021. Her poetry chapbook, boys in the electric age, is forthcoming by Tolsun Books in August 2021.