I came to my ancestors land yet just as I saw Aztlan
you hovered over my every concious moment,
(even in my sleep at times)
making sure I knew who was it that I was,
since your job was to remind:
how much a part of that no more I was.
(Only a false memory you tried to convince me)
Though every living tissue
Of my constitution claimed its ancient stake.
You made sure I was dead scared.
Not unlike you now, ghostly reminder.
Yet I convinced myself all the time
(that’s how I battled you)
‘Tis here you belong, Aztlan is your home.
Yet you flew free in my thoughts.
(unlike me, in the land of the free)
You kept whispering your reality in my head: I am illegal.
I tried to ward you off.
By simply being who I was: a Xicano.
(I belong cried out a million times in the chambers of my noise-proof head)
I expelled you with ancient incantations,
by presenting you my roots.
Though you always found a way back into my soul.
Until I decided to be no longer with you,
I moved away, and kept you at bay.
I was saddened, exiled and far.
I know who I am, yet I never vanquished you.
I see with my tears as I contemplate now.
How hard it was to be then Xicano in Aztlan.
Yet thanks to that I am who I am now.
The ghost now gone and dead,
(vanquished at last!)
Occasionally raising to remind me,
how it took all that, to be me today.