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I Want to Go Home
Justine Narro

I want to go home.

I can still see it, still feel it
The cuts and bruises on my knees,
the dirt under my fingernails,
and the sweat in my hair from countless days and nights

of picking naranjas from my backyard tree
BBQs where I would go outside to pick the chile piquín for the pico de gallo and my tíos sat outside drinking Tecate and Modelo while my dad cooked the fajita

of chasing light bugs fireflies lightning bugs o luciérnagas, como dice mi abuelo

I want to go home.

A place you have never stepped foot on but call it your land
A place you know nothing about but say you have more right to

A piece of paper
And it is yours?
Because it is now “technically” legal

The gringos trick us
Promise us better
All for what?

To kill mi abuelo’s abuelo
For a price
Because it is fair
Because it is now yours?

I want to go home.

The barrio where I was raised
A stucco home with three bedrooms and one bath
Chickens and cabritos in the back
Our own natural lawn mowers

At five years old when I helped place the now cracked tiles in our new house

Where I swept the dirt off the concrete porch not two inches above the ground and played in the six-inch puddle of water on the edge of the house,
where the land indented from years of our makeshift driveway

I want to go home.

You say it is yours because it is America’s land because it is on dirt that is exactly the same on the other side of the river with a different name

The cactus plants that housed the tortoises
The aloe vera that I would cut for sunburns
The leaves from the Mexican olive trees that I would collect
None of which you know how to use

I want to go home.

The place where I met every friend
My first day of school and the boy next to me gave me a toothy grin and ten years later asked me to prom

You say I don’t belong because it is your choice to make where every memory is where all my love is where my life waits

I want to go home.