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I Am From

By Debra Dolan

PROMPT — Who am I today?

I am from an all-too-familiar book

From Penguin and Random House essayists, uncensored


I am from the unread pages on the upper shelves

wine-stained, barren, out-of-reach …

language too difficult to understand


I am from lust

bursting free of small-town restraints and boring Saturday afternoons


I'm from half-breeds and half-truths

From a young German girl and a French-Canadian man

I'm from the lonely and misunderstood

From the "I don't believe you" and "I hope you have a daughter just like you"

to those men that leave without saying goodbye


I'm from lapsed Catholics, sad souls

I'm from battlefields, bars, and mistaken identity

eating potato pancakes, sucking bourbon from a tit


From the cruelty of internal wars raging and longings to escape

No evidence, silent to the core

 

Debra Dolan lives on the west coast of Canada. An avid reader of women's memoir, feminist, solitary seeker, and private journaler for over 50 years. She is the author of two self-published books with limited print runs; "I want to remember and I want to be remembered."

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