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

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Written by Valencia Clement