I am...
A Navy brat, middle child of six,
with no mother to name.
A vagabond of the eastern United
States’ coast.
A child of abusers; not to me, but
to substance and themselves.
A second generation American, with
a grandfather from Dublin and a grandmother from Sicily, on my father’s side of
the family.
A member of the Shawnee Nation,
where the only gift my mother gave me in life was her culture on the Oklahoma
reservation.
Seen as a mutt to both sides of my
family - half white, half native.
My father’s pointed nose and my
mother’s high cheeks; my father’s warm smile and my mother’s dark eyes; my
father’s curls and my mother’s complexion.
I am…
The persistent glare on my
childhood friend’s TV, while we watched cartoons on a futon in her basement.
A pastel orange Tommy Hilfiger
parka, just slightly too big to keep my small nose from turning red from the
cold, while I played in the snow packed into our backyard patio in the winter
of 2004.
A giant stuffed snake my dad won at
the fair I would often fall asleep on while watching my brother play his
GameCube.
The skateboard my brother gave me
when mom took him with her; unfortunately, he wasn’t my dad’s, so he couldn’t
stay when she left.
I am…
David Bowie’s permanently dilated
pupil and fashion sense from the 80s.
A vegetarian, former vegan, of
three years.
Graphite on paper - portraits of
the people I draw.
An activist, a feminist, a liberal,
a queer.
The stabbing throb of a migraine behind
my eyes.
