this new poem i have been kicking around, America: My First Love Poem, talks about mah parents journey here and then how i arrived in NYC which is always funny cuz when i tell peeps that i came over in a steam boat and still remember ellis island they get all misty eyed and then i have to slap em in the arm-
“I am 34 years old… Do the math!… I came here in a Pan-Am DC 10!… First class, beetches!”
the story goes that dad left ecua when moms was like 6 months pregnant to start setting up the new life… moms left ecua when i was about 6 months old… back then, as now, you set yourself up… work 70 hours a week… save enough to bring the next relative and next thing you know, you have like 12 members of your family over and everybody pools all their resources to set up some kind of biz or buy a house or something… mah parents, like their kid, are a lil more introverted than that… so i was brought to the good ol’ US at the tender age of 18 months… got reunited with the folks… we waz all happy & reunited… mah moms got pregnant… had mah sis… we went to ecua to set up our papers… showed up at the US consulate office with one of their citizens and then they gave the rest of the clan legal alien status… and then you know the rest
this is the story i have lived with all my life but only when i was on the bus ride to DC did it really hit me- did i even like my parents when i got to NYC? was i hella pissed from being ripped away from two doting grandmas that, from all accounts, treated me like gold? this shit started bugging me and hence- i wrote a poem
yesterday, i am grilling mah dad for some details and i get this lil gem-
“well, your aunt’s husband was not giving you up. he always wanted a son and he was looking at you as that boy. he actually kidnapped you for a few days and they had to get him all drunk to give up your location.”
aint dat sum sheet! i had heard about how mah grandma was offering to raise me in ecua but that my moms was sayin to mah dad- “tell your mother to send me my son!”
but this kidnapping story is kinda crazy
after mah release(!), some strings were pulled and i was sent to the US with an envoy from NYC’s consul office. yeah, thats right- i was government goods! which is a good thing since dad says i caused some major wreck on the six hour plane flight and that the flight crew wanted to toss mah ass out… until they found out i was a diplomatic package and then they changed their tune. “more, similac, baby o.b.?”
o.b.: did i like you guys when i got here?
dad: hell, no! you smashed everything you saw! we couldnt even get pampers on you since you were used to cloth diapers. the first few days we thought about sending you back. then you and your mom bonded and things got back to normal
well, that answers some questions and explains a few things- abandoned at young age, kidnapped, moved to unfamiliar surroundings, moved back, moved some more… oh yeah, the source of some of mah issues gets clearer and clearer…
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