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letra de duel citizenship - denise chaila

where are you from, originally?
where are you from? originally?
see, our souls are composed of borders
and all of lines that we have crossed that tangle
are wires when we speak
there are some people who have borrowed accents
from almost every single continent
trying to fill in the blanks
where our tongues are starting to trip
over the languages that we were born into
there are some people who will spend their whole lives
looking for a definition of home
that doesn’t come with strings attached
i have spent my whole life learning that i must make myself
take my belonging, it will not just be handed to you
so now, now i could tell you about king and about countries
about wars and democracies
about independence and revolutionaries
about famine and bounty
about green and white and golden eagles
against streaks of orange and black
i could tell you about amhrán na bhfiann
and lumbanyeni zambia
i could show you the spirit of lucan, limerick, and lusaka
i could translate all of my lenje stories
so that we could sing them as gaeilge
i could be bacon and cabbage in mufulira
or [?] in swords, cooking nshima
that’s [?] for my people in the diaspora
but, you see, i’m both the story: akashimi
and the one telling it: seanachaí
there is so much céilí in my kopala
and i am tired of proving that i am as much denise
as i am mwaka
so cén scéal?
because i learned how to be irish
knowing that some people would always think
that i was beyond the pale
i learned how to be zambian with too little bemba
to prove i haven’t lost my way
but as long as there is copper still inside my blood
nothing and n0body will ever cause the zambia inside of me to rust
and if anyone tries to throw all of my errands to the dogs
i will bring the hounds out just to show you
what cú chulainn’s on
you see, we know what it’s like to be patrick
to be tapestry
to be too long prodigal from your homeland
while you are slowly being adopted to another
we are a remix of anthems and flags
we are both the signature and the line, connecting dots
that too not yet know their correlation
so, no, these are not alien flowers
but, yeah, we’re extraterrestrial
because we’ve been nurtured by many soils
and we are not the dead branch of a family tree
falling victim to mental deforestation
yes, we have been replanted
but we can’t forget how we got here
still fresh off that boat
so if you throw us in the deep end
we’ll show you that we know how to float
not everything is bad about being a rolling stone
sometimes you just cover more ground that way
sometimes all of this baggage only has us going on guilt trips
sometimes second-hand citizenship makes
video clips, football chants, rugby matches feel like copper bullets
sometimes the wind that shakes the barley
blows through you like hurricane season
but we will not let anybody scatter these seeds
or dictate where they grow
we are too familiar with this field
we know that we cultivate our homes
athenry state of mind
we only yield when it’s time to harvest
so where are you from, originally?
because we are not the dead branch of a diasporan tree
yes, we bear different fruit from our family tree
we offer different produce to the family feast
but there is no hiding these proofs
there are no lies in these roots
we are unashamed of our heritage
we have nothing to prove
and sometimes there’s a pain in these roots
that our being is anchored to
but you will see beauty when this forest grows
you will see us for what we are
we are the same stem, with different leaves
the same love, with different means
the same heart, with different dreams
the same journey, just with different wings

so where are you from?
where are you from, originally?

- denise chaila

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