“DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, is the molecule inside cells that contains the genetic instructions for an organism’s development and function.”

What should I call myself?

Should I slip my soul
        (not the one in the bible)
Into your designer words

The ones you learned 
To mold through your mouth

        From your father and mother
        The preacher and the saint
        The orator who was
No smarter than you
        Or me

Only louder

Possessed for a moment
        With anger
And a
        Delusion of grandeur

What should I call myself?

Should I sell myself

An identity 
        Shaped by the currents
Of the time
        The shouts of dead poets
And 
        Dead revolutionaries

Or should I let 

My blood flow
        Out of 
My DeoxyriboNucleicAcid

Into my soul
        (not the one in the bible)

The instructions
        for being
        for living
        for whom I am

And will be

        I am the end 

That flowed 
        Across decades
Even centuries

That flowed
        From my father’s
        Puerto Rico
And 
        From my mother’s
        República Dominicana

That flowed
        From Africa
        From Europe
        From Indigenous Caribbean

That flowed
        From
        Indigenous humans
        Greedy explorers
        Shackled Africans	
        Drunk sailors and soldiers
        Lovemaking dreams
        Sexual violations

Every fantasy left 
        Behind

What should I call myself?

The ingredients of who I am
        Through decades
        Centuries even

The humans
        I’ve ever met
The loves
        I’ve ever loved
The music I’ve 
        Ever heard
The art I’ve
        Ever seen
The cities
        I’ve ever visited
or lived

My blood flows

        Into my two sons
        My granddaughter
        My children, I may have 
never Known

You say I am 
        This

Yet I don’t know
        What this is
        Who this is

Tell me

What should I call myself?

My mind craves
        A definition 
        A label

A slogan
        Would even be nice

I swim in symbols
I swim in undefinitions

        Drowning in the words
Thrown at me

You are____

        Say it after me

You are____

What should I call myself?

I’ve lived so many different 
        lives

On so many different 
        Planets

In so many different
        Universes

        This is getting confusing

The pillars that hold me up 
        are shaking

This is a new journey
        From the beginning
To the end

To find myself

What should I call myself?

My DNA /diˌɑːk.siˌraɪ.boʊ.nuːˌkleɪ.ɪk ˈæs.ɪd/
        calls me

The Other. 

What is DNA and How Does it Work?