I come from

I come from crossing the Channel and hitchhiking in 1967,

Demonstrating in Paris in 68 and getting married in London in 69

I come from sweating and digging in a mine in the North of France

I come from poetry and collage

I come from frogs and roast beefs

I come from singing and acting

I come from warm sand and divine figs

I come from a bourgeois education, chats with tramps on benches and prostitutes on the streets

I come from urinary catheters and invasive medical equipment

I come from patriarchy and feminism

I come from discipline and freedom

I come from Karl Marx, WW II and the fall of the Berlin Wall

I come from endless beaches and seagulls

I come from Shakespeare and Molière

I come from books, letters, postcards, and origami

I come from a harsh mother and a useless father

I come from unconscious adults, unlimited ideas

Undesirable dreams and unbelievable strengths and weaknesses

I come from the flat country and the mountains

I come from scarcity of money and its necessity

I come from War and Peace

I come from amazing resilience and deep sadness

I come from loving men, attentive therapists and redeeming books

I come from beautiful and unbearable experiences

Each revealing my will to survive

Interesting writing excercise inspired by I come from by Dean Atta