Patrick James_Where I’m From

I am from South Jersey, which is flatter than North Jersey: fields of alfalfa, and the blue, open sky.

I am from the place where winter is so cold we forget about spring, and when spring comes, it feels like being held by someone we love, and that person hasn’t changed, but we have.

I am from “river trash,” a three-bedroom shack with nine children, and a father who drinks too much.

I am from England, a mother with proper clothes, a proper hat, a father who sings Welsh drinking songs.

I am from Milwaukee, from Swedish farmers, a Lutheran church with a blood red carpet, an urn full of coffee, an urn full of our uncle’s ashes.

I am from train rides through Greece, from a ship that sunk in the Bermuda Triangle—(To bear our grief, we planted a garden, and ate the cucumbers and melons, the tomatoes on wooden stakes).

I am from a chlorine pool, the water like turquoise gems, our heads surfacing, our mouths opening to breath, our eyes burning and red—as if we had been crying, through we had not been crying.

I am from a house built during the Revolutionary War, an attic full of friendly ghosts, a basement full of silent snakes, and dust, and water when it rains.

I am from an orange cat: he is held, is called darling, is called precious. I am from our brother, once lifting the cat to the window so that he could see outside.

I am from our brother’s grave, which is on the road that leads to Salem (Salem, an old name for an old town, as in Shalom, which means peace).

I am from Houston, TX, from Tom of Tomball. He drives us to his high school one day, and we ask him what it was like to grow up gay, and he says: “Not so bad; easier than you would think.”

I am from a mother who is beautiful, and a father who is handsome, closets full of clothes—pink dresses, black suits, belts and buckles, and high-heeled shoes. And hat boxes. And photographs in shoeboxes.