I Am From
By AJ
I am from a place where nobody wants to go because of poverty.
I am from a fatherless upbringing, which is common in my eyes.
I am from where grandparents raise their grandkids.
I am from where people’s morals are backwards.
I am from where people worry about the new Jordans and not the light bill.
I am from where prison is almost mandatory (sounds farfetched, but it’s true)
I am from where everybody wears kufis, but don’t practice their religion.
I am from where death is common.
I am from where you have to look over your back 24/7 to be on point.
I am from where public schools pass you without attending class.
I am from where teachers are drug addicts.
I am from where being African American with dreadlocks is almost everyone
in the hood, and mistaken identity is highly possible.
I am from where a change would make a difference but it’s still the same.
I am from where kids don’t think of their future.
I am from where people need help but don’t get it.
I am from where you can’t be weak or you’ll stick out.
I am from where the smell of gun smoke is usual.
I am from where eating in the dark is common.
I am from where playing in alley tag is fun.
I am from where basketball courts are made out of milk crates.
I am from where you couldn’t wait for the first day of school so you could
put your new clothes on to show off. But when you come home you have
to take them off.
I am from where you got holes in your shoes and clothes.
I am from where you grow up too fast; you live beyond your age.
I am from where every neighborhood has a candy lady and a bootlegger that
sells malt liquor and loose cigarettes and blunts.
I am from where Go-Go music is blasting in everybody’s house radio.
I am from where babies are out at midnight.
I am from Southeast Washington, DC.
I wanna be where the world doesn’t judge me on where I’m from but on where I’m going.
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The poets featured here are currently incarcerated, and many of them are in federal prisons far from home. Your feedback is a valuable source of motivation and connection to the outside community. Post your comments, feedback, and encouragement in the space below the poem. Messages will be passed on directly to the author. Comments may not appear immediately on the site, as our team processes them to mail to the poets.
Wow. This poem is relentless, forcing the reader to keep going even when it’s tough and she doesn’t want to. The repetition works really well here; it gives the sense of stagnation and inability to change, which seems to be the theme of this poem. But the last line catches the reader by surprise– not where you’re from, but you want to be. That makes the whole poem very powerful, and I believe that you can be in a place “where the world doesn’t judge me on where I’m from but on where I’m going.”
There was a group of us reading this poem together. We really appreciated the descriptive detail in this poem. The poet presents this very detailed image of what his home is, or was, and it made it so crisp in our minds. Not all poets would be able to capture a neighborhood this way, selecting just the right details to bring it to life for the reader. We also appreciated how it seemed complex in terms of exposing hypocrisy in his own community while also not centering all blame on the people themselves. The end of the poem leaves readers with an open question, and an invitation, to think about where this person is heading to… and we look forward to seeing where that is.
This poem is relentless, forcing the reader to keep going even when it’s tough and she doesn’t want to. The repetition works really well here; it gives the sense of stagnation and inability to change, which seems to be the theme of this poem.