Our Poem

We wrote this poem together to celebrate our intersectionality. Everyone in our group contributed a line or two. It's inspired by a poem titled "Where I'm From," by George Ella Lyon-- we followed the same structure to share with each other something about the places, families, and contexts that each of us comes from. I am honored to transcribe it here:


Where We're From

We are from unconditional love and warm food,
From misplaced perceptions and clickers, not TV remotes.
We are from catching fireflies on summer nights and climbing mountains in the winter,
county fairs and the Cape Cod Bay,
From a home with dogs and Harry Potter books.

We are from basketball and twisted fingers, where doubts of survival always linger.
From the sauce you made for me in the kitchen that I now make for you.

We are from spontaneous adventures with no plans planned,
honeysuckles in the backyard leading to woods with no one to supervise.
From the land of arenas and stench, and the land of digital fantasies that linger in my mind.

From the shining city on the hill, lucky for loans and copays for pills.
From a capital without money, food paid with a plastic card;
used clothes from strangers and borrowed book with faded pages.
From scraped sticky sap palms and "take care of your brother."

In these yellow chairs, we're all one.
We all care because we're one.