Chicana

We grew up different
I watched them with my head sunken into my right hand
As they talked with beer from wages earned under the hot sun
Always keeping quiet, but remembering every sigh, and telling Papi,
"ya vamonos", let's go home
I didn't know why they came from el otro lado, and yet why I was born
Uncles Sam’s daughter
My mom with her composure always drawn to the ground, shoulders
hunched as if she believed she didn't exist
Always cooking, working, cleaning with a beaten soul and body
I don't have the words to talk to those which carry my blood, and I'm
ashamed to shake their hand
As if it's my fault they are not at home in this Chicano land
 I hug my uncle because I think he gets me
We don't talk much but he knows that I'm keeping records of his stories in my heart
My grandmother died and with her went the submissiveness I'll never meet
I don't belong on either side it seems, as if within my mother’s womb I stayed wet inside the river not belonging over here or over there
The hot busses when I go to Mexico confuse me, I look away as the men
stare at me as if they've never seen a woman
My cousins laugh because I can't say the two L's right and I cry
inside because even our clothes is different.
And I'll never be confident enough to walk the streets knowing that my skin
is brown as beans and my face is unbeknownst to those who believe that this land is home of theirs alone.