"It ain't where you from, it's where you at."

Amanda Torres

It ain't where you from,
it's where you at.

You are eight,
a machete under your pillow, a purple butterfly on your nose.
"If you touch me I will cut you",
but some how his fingers always find a way to cut harder.

You are fifteen,
in long jeans, a white blouse and feathered hair.
Your grandmother (Whose as hard as sticks whose father hung himself in her room
and whose mother was committed)
has come to take you in after.
Your stepfather whose hands stick and stink like spilled rum,
carried you out the door screaming
"puta sucia, fucking bitch, you're pregnant, you whore".

In the car
Granma's eyes never leave the road.
"I can't believe you made your mother cry"
a scream
that splits glass, cracks cement, cuts bone
and skin and bottles and blood erupts from you
a scream that fills all 15 years of him and his
stench and stuttering
"but, babygirl, I'm your daddy"
it is a scream against the silence
of your red-haired, pale hearted mother
even when you told her, even when you told her, even when you told her.
You are not in this car
you are under him with a knife,
you are over him with a knife
it is just you with a knife
alone again.

It ain't where you from
It's where you at.

Your daughter who looks just like you is
towering over you
cornering you
pushing you back until there's no where left to go
her eyes are mirrors.
You are trembling
"yeah, mom, if you love me, why don't you ever let me touch you? What's wrong with me? What's wrong?"
she pushes you, skin kisses skin
your eyes snap open and scream
"get off me, get off me, I'll kill you"
her hands are his hands, her face is his face
you want it to bleed
your fists fly, fall and smack like
dropping rocks from roofs.
When you see the blood you stop
Your daughter is curled on the floor.
Her eyes are mirrors and you run from what you see.

It ain't where you come from
It's where you at.

You have come home to
a shopping cart in your living room
a hole in your wall, a garbage can
with dried brown vomit and a broken door.
Your daughter is asleep on the edge of her bed.
She always sleeps like that but never falls.
It is 12 in the afternoon.
You keep your rage quiet as you pull back her hair.
Graham cracker eyes open and try to speak "mom".
"I'm moving out. I'm leaving baby and you can't come with me".

You are in your silver car
that runs like a young woman in high heels
and shines like the many backs on the beach.
Your daughter sees you and waves.
Her hair is lighter than yours and her skin, a gold cream.
You and her father used to laugh
about how you ended
up with such a white girl of a child.
She throws her bags in the back and plops in the front,
leans over and kisses your cheek, smiling.
You put your arm out the window as if to wave to the sun.
She puts her hand behind your head,
strokes your hair, rests her open palms on your shoulders.
When you get to the house on Washington St. right in front of a tidal river
One of the few places in the world where oshun and yemaya can hold hands and dance, feet kicking back and forth, hips rocking the mountains.
When you both walk in the door, you start to cry and your daughter wraps her arms around you. You rest your head on her and look up smiling.
"Where I'm at is where I've always wanted to be."