I Am From Where I Choose To Be From

“White girl,Guerra,Botello,White girl, hey green eyes !”

I am from the fare skin of my complexion

To the dark skin of my ancestors

Raised in despair,prayer,and warfare

Roaming the halls filled with addicts,convicts,and victims

I was merely existing at the age of 6

Attempting to resist the conflicts

“Johnny died last night”

White walls with glossy eyes harmonize their cries

Every other day one of us would die

I am from the reign of Dogpatch

to the reign of the curse claiming children

Molded from the place called “the sands”

no I don’t mean the beach

I’m talking about the hoods in the streets

Every street took the name of a saint

Children segregated by their war paint

“Don't worry about it now it's just a silly old thing”

you always had to hide your offspring

they walked,talked,and secretly stalked

I placed my thumb over my index finger thanking as I passed

Until my fingers would cross no more

I am from the death of my peers

to the substance abuse which filled our veins

My skin excused me of actions

I was only from a fraction

No,I was claimed and unashamed

I am from the barren land

Where the Cristeros demand

Complexion is not a detection

I am not a conformist my fight will persist

The God whom I prayed to was not my savior

He sure as hell never did me a favor

I am from addiction,violence,depression,diagnosis,and death

The soul who created me is to face death

Poison fills hers to prevent her last breath

“You're so Catholic with your stupid Holy Spirit but yet he won't save her”

White coats join across the nation to infer

I watch each day as she begins to deteriorate

I am from the pain of knowing my sister continues to lacerate

To the late whispers of her wanting to terminate

The white walls with glossy eyes are now watching

But this time it isn’t about Johnny it’s about Christine’s falling

“What the fuck were you going to do in that fucking art school in Chicago”

Molded from the novels I love to the pencils that bleed for me

I am from my passions

to my achievements kept in silence

Often thought of as the face of defiance

I am not from compliance

I am not from a broken home

I am not from a tragedy

I am not a lost cause

I am not a Chicana,Hispana,Latina

I am me and only me

I am from my thoughts and the things left unsaid

I am from the voice of my people

I am a hybrid of the Cristeros to the oppression of my race

I am from the obstacles I face

I am from the blood in my veins which call for a change

I speak for those who are silenced

So don’t you dare define me as another chicana rebel

So the real question Is who are you? And Where are you from?