I Am, and I Will Be
"Comete todos tus vegetales," my mother would tell me
As I sat, after school, at our small dinner table
in our small dining room
In our small, two bedroom, one bathroom house.
"Si no te los comes, no vas a llegar aser grande," my mother would remind me
As I stared at a verdant plate that mocked
the absense of verdant paper in
A brown leather wallet.
"Quiero que seas un abogado," my mother would encourage me
As I watched her punch numbers in a square machine
that yelled for more,
The more we did not have.
"Un dia, bebe, un dia no vas a sufrir lo que yo sufri," my mother would cry
As I watched clear tears slip from her eyelids
and land on piles of envelopes.
Envelopes, envelopes.
I am from immigrants.
I am an immigrant.
I am the fruit of my parents' labor.
And I will be someone bigger, someone greater.
I will take from my parents the suffering they have endured
and cure they're wounds with my success because
I am an immigrant, and I know what its like
to hurt.