Where I'm From

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Comments: Poem on Gatsby.
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I am from the earth,
from the fertile brown dirt and ripe corn that grow from it.
I am from the glistening seas.
(Silky blue, an endless dream
that tastes of salt water and seaweed.)
I am from the civilized,
the success and happiness,
a dream, a wish of tomorrow,
an inner desire covered by a façade.

I'm from silks and lavender,
from sculpted marble and pure gold.
I'm from the forget-me-nots and the won't-give-up,
from the ambitious and the unrelenting.
I'm from some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life
and of princes and damsels in distress.

I'm from Romanticism and Idealism,
passionate kisses and ardent love.
From the winds and seas that have delivered me here,
the man who had done everything to attain.
Silken shirts and golden dreams are torn,
ripped through like flimsy paper,
mask fallen and fractured,
Fading away with life's blood.
I am from those inclinations—
Frayed before I lived fully—
Forever surrounded in oblivion.