I AM MY MOTHER'S DAUGHTER.

My mother says I was born a revolutionary,

Burst out of her narrow birth canal slick with

The blood of my people, indignant, slamming

It shut behind me like a door, refusing to

Scream into the light.

When the nurse tried to swaddle me,

I flailed and writhed.

I wasn’t there, but I remember when my

People set their own crops on fire,

Destroyed their own creations,

Turned our city to ash.

Blessed are the desperate, for they’ll chew their own paws off

Just to live.

I’m only a rebel in the way a shaman is,

The way a trapped animal is.

I remember the crows circling above the ashes

Of a city we burned to the ground with our own hands so the enemy couldn’t grow fat in it.

I wasn’t there, but I remember.