Where Am I From?

“Where are you from?” she asked me, well-meaning eyes expecting an answer that would fit neatly into this cup of tea after church world we’d stumbled into like refugees from another planet. 

I blinked. My voice stumbling lost in my dark throat.

Where am I from? 

Where am I from.

I am from the bottlebrush tree where the hummingbirds dart, flashing emerald and black.

I am from the warm Caribbean breeze tossing bushy tailed palms against the blue.  

I am from the noisy cheerful song of humble smiles ambling along, rhythmic and alive. 

I am from the warm turquoise sea, lit by moods of emerald and green and the dancing of the sun.

Where am I from?

I am from years of uphill struggle, battles fought and hopes left slain by scarcity and want. 

I am from seasons of scraping by, making do and hanging life together by a thread.

I am from the shadow of a colonial past alive in a culture left with scars still scraping across children’s hearts.

I am from the sound of gun shots in the night, the cry of mother’s emptied arms and the loss of life too soon. 

Where am I from? I am from a distant song that beckoned me to leave my island home 

to seek a path beyond my own. Here. 

To this place. This moment.

This is where I’m from. 

This is where I’m home. 

Home in all lands and none.

A place not fitting neatly into a cup of tea-after-church world.