GENETIC

Hey, y’all.

For Day 24 of National Poetry Writing Month, the prompt is to:

Write a poem that begins with a line from another poem (not necessarily the first one), but then goes elsewhere with it. This will work best if you just start with a line of poetry you remember, but without looking up the whole original poem. Or you could find a poem that you haven’t read before and then use a line that interests you. The idea is for the original to furnish the backdrop for your work, but without influencing you so much that you feel as if you are just rewriting the original! For example, you could begin, “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” or “I have measured out my life with coffee spoons,” or “I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster,” or “they persevere in swimming where they like.” Really, any poem will do to provide your starter line – just so long as it gives you the scope to explore.

I borrowed a line from Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA.” Here is my poem:

GENETIC

(Inspired by Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA”)

By Farah Lawal Harris, 2024

i know how you work, i know just who you are,

a leech tryna suck the glow up out of me.

don’t you know it’s genetic,

flowing through my bloodstream,

infinite supply you could never deplete?

the last one who tried to bite me

ended up biting themselves.

when you try to fight me, you fighting yourself.