- US BY US COLLECTIVE
My Parent's Child by Valencia Clement
I am my mother’s crippling anxiety
She shackles me at the ankles
Making each step harder than the last
I am my father’s extroversion
Bouncing back and forth, person to person
With such contagious charm...
I am my mother’s intellect,
Her tenacity and sheer wit
confounded her unlikely probability
of achieving the American Dream
I am my father's common sense
He has no degrees
but he moves through the world
like King of the streets.
I follow in his footsteps and I always make it home
I am my mother’s loneliness
It crawls in bed with me
when reality starts
to blend with my nightmares
how can I kill the darkness
when it is trapped inside of me?
I am my father’s anger
punching walls, holding grudges
and not taking shit from anybody
… mad at the world for never giving me a fair chance
the frown lines wrinkle my skin
I am my parent’s product
queer and mad
hoping to be lost
but finding myself so perfectly imperfect
in two human beings
Written by Valencia Clement