A friend recently showed me an Instagram Reel that challenged viewers to write a poem about where you're from without saying where you're from.
I thought it was a fun idea, and after sitting with the concept for a few months, I wrote this.
I hope you enjoy.
Memory Lane
I come from dirt roads that used to be railroad tracks.
I come from a land just outside the electric
where gravity is old and the people are older.
I come from coal, both in the mines and on the hills.
I come from workers, not from the coal, but blue collar as they come.
Entrepreneurs are my lot, and expectations are a requirement.
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I come from fields of long grass, stringy and sun burnt,
Not fields that I worked, but fields that I ran through.
Through them I went, to nowhere I ran;
For I come from nowhere. How can you leave?
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I come from rainy days in front of a TV.
No! Get up. Time to work. I save the money I don't make.
Save it for a rainy day I don't enjoy.
I come from where it felt it was only raining for me.
A place where thunder shook the home and tears were the norm.
I come from bottled emotions overflowing in the storm.
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I come from the mill where we huff wood and stand in place all day
While sawdust goes straight to our brains.
I come from crude music to drown out the noise.
What's louder? Machine or man? Turn up the music. Fill the void.
Loud voices in my head. Angry words float about.
Brain rot and brain ache—my head is in pain from the sawdust intake.
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Dress shirts and khaki pants to mask reality—
I come from a mirage, a desert in a deserted place full of dessert.
Get the cookie cutter; make 'em fit.
Living words that uninspire dead people.
I come from filled pews but mostly empty,
Important instructions for the petty.
Baked goods, burnt to a crisp, lathered in sweet talk,
I come from cover-ups, with sweet donations from rotten smiles.
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I come from friends, crooked as teeth.
Were they friends I actually made? They weren't friends I'd actually keep.
They try new things but leave me behind, then invite me to try things I don't wanna try.
One thing leads to another. How did we get here?
You can't break what wasn't actually there.
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I come from deli meat on Kaiser rolls
And Sundays that were called Family Time.
Now it's just time... time passing us by.
Hardy laughs but I'm not laughing; cheesy grins but I'm not smiling.
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I come from suicide disease and divorce papers
Where doctors succeed and attorneys fail,
Where credit cards enslave and people yell,
Where questions are heard and answers aren't met,
Where things are destroyed and nothing is left.
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I come from an empty stomach, first as a cause, then just 'cause—
Pierogies, frozen pizza, ramen, and spaghetti.
Lunch money that wasn't used on lunch, pocketed for those rainy days.
Money we didn't have, quarters from bags found in the attic.
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I come from bike rides. How convenient they went.
Lemonade or chocolate milk, and I was content.
Chain pops and bunny hops—I rode the dirt roads of nowhere
Searching for meaning in the potholes that wasn't there.