I Am From | Sabrina Santa Clara

I am from the dog-eat-dog family where
the youngest was not the baby but
the sin eater

I am from the world between worlds
the nonbinary before the word existed
the White Mexican Filipina Portuguese
where do I fit in the world when I am always living
in the in-between spaces

I am from poverty
and the violation of a grandfather’s tongue and
a fathers fist

I am from a long, long line of legacy burdens

But,

Before then
there was the truth of the truth
the far back of the time before

I am from the Curanderas
the la que sabe
the Strega and
the Witches

the ones that danced naked in full moonlight,
who made love out loud and outdoors
who shouted out their orgasms without a concept of
shame or keep it down or keep up appearances.

I am from even before then

I am from the Bodhisattvas
the ones come to do the work for all the ancestral lines

I am from the before the I am existed.

The story behind the poem

This one came out of a practice, and I want to pass the practice along — because so many people are sure they “can’t write poetry,” and I don’t believe that for a second. One of the simplest doors in is a sentence stem: you pick an opening — If you really knew me, you’d know… / When I think about death… / The first time I was kissed… — and you just keep finishing it, over and over, without stopping to judge what comes. The repetition is the trick. It slips past the part of you that’s editing and reaching for the “right” answer, and lets the truer, stranger material rise on its own.

This poem came from a psychedelic integration workshop that handed us the stem “I am from…” I started completing it, and this is what came out — the wounded lineage first, and then, underneath it, the older and truer one. I didn’t plan a word of it. I just kept answering the question. If you’ve ever wanted to write and told yourself you couldn’t, try it: pick a stem and follow it down. You might be surprised who’s waiting for you there.