Je suis née éblouie par la ville des lumières
and grew up in a city that once couldn't sleep,
dazed by the lights, my whole life I fled from
a heritage I wasn't told I could keep.

Je suis née des trottoirs, des rues noueuses et sales
and grew up on a block which remained much cleaner
than my conscience because I remember seeing
through blue eyes a black man being clobbered for a
misdemeanor.

Je suis née dans un pays où les fleures se fanent
and grew up in a place where the flowers were fake,
a house where anything that wasn't of plastic
was soon tossed in the sky, left to plummet and break.

Je suis née à Paris
J'ai grandis à New York
Je mourrai, ailleurs