Where I'm From

Sometimes I’m baffled the responses I get when I
Answer the question of where I’m from.
I'm a Brooklyn baby, born and bred in the borough
But when people hear decent grammar,
they also don't expect to hear
that I was born in Brookdale Hospital, right off the B35
or that I grew up on Bradford and Livonia,
a couple of blocks from the 3.
Back in the day you would have easily found me
playing in the yard of PS 13 or
giggling with my friends in front of IS 292
or hanging out at the pizza shop around the corner from Brooklyn Tech -
or working at my first real job at the Burger King in Fulton Mall
or kissing my first love while in the glory of Promenade’s panorama.
Nowadays, you can find me at the only law school
that goes by the name of my borough
(yea that's right, I said its MY borough)
And I claim Brooklyn just as it claimed me
years before my birth, when mother came
from Jamaica, dreaming of the stairs she would climb
as she moved away from the land of wood and water
to the birthplace of her future daughter,
attempting to attain something better.
Many look down on Brooklyn
But many know of its promise of a better life -
The one it gave my mother decades ago.
I'm not just from Brooklyn - I am Brooklyn
for I am the realization of the promise
given to my mother and many others -
I am the accumulation of opportunities it holds
and the continuing result of Brooklyn’s hopes come true.
So while I might appear to some to be from somewhere else
I won't shape my answers to their questions
by their misconceptions
of what it means to be from Brooklyn.
© 2007 Patricia B.

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Ok yea, I should be studying for the MPRE, but I was inspired to write while rocking out to some Mos Def tracks. This poem is actually a work in progress - I might clean it up a bit, maybe add more, or maybe write another poem about me and Brooklyn? There's just so much that I can say.