Brigits Flame Entry - August Week 4 - Gravity - Trying to Explain Growing Up Foreign
brigits_flame Week 4 JFF Entry - Gravity
Poetry (oh dear god, I wrote more poetry), 589 words
Trying to Explain Growing up Foreign
She’s sitting at a table trying to explain.
When you are at Home, you are Foreign.
You do not belong in the heart of a country.
You belong in the edges of things-not at the border
But the space between the border and substance.
When you moved, this is what happened:
At first they look at you with awe. You look foreign-
Your hair is the same color and your eyes the same color
Your nose flat like the rest of them and your eyes slanted
But you look foreign.
There is something in the way you move
That marks you as different. And then you open your mouth
And they can hear Foreign in every word you speak.
This is not supposed to be your home, this strange world
With their unfamiliar ways and their unfamiliar language.
You start to embrace being different.
Your identity is Foreigner.
You wrap resentment and admiration around yourself
Because that is what is given to you.
Years pass.
You learn to move like them. Learn their language.
Watch their television shows and listen to their music.
You can hear the heartbeat of the city
When you close your eyes.
Green grass and green trees and the smell
Of freshly rained-upon dirt are replaced
By tiled towers and steel and concrete wet with subtropical rain.
Home begins to move away from There and towards Here
Until you straddle the border of two worlds.
You step over it-
And then you move (back).
This is supposed to be Home. You look foreign-
Your hair is not the same color and your eyes not the same color
Your nose is flat and your eyes slanted
But this is the land where dreams come true
where nobody cares how you look-unless you look foreign.
There is something in the way you move
That marks you as different. And then you open your mouth
And they can hear Foreign in every word you speak.
This is supposed to be Home, this strange world
With their unfamiliar ways and their unfamiliar language.
You struggle to adapt
Your identity is Foreigner
You wrap mockery and scorn around yourself
Because that is what is given to you.
You grew up with moving pictures and reading comics
But they call them by foreign names
The shows they watched and the music they listened to
You called Foreign.
When you try to hear the heartbeat of the city
You hear green grass and green trees
Smell freshly-rained-upon dirt
Instead of tiled towers and steel and concrete
Wet with subtropical rain.
You fight your way into the land
Where dreams come true. Even though it is your birthright
They call you Foreign to your face and when you protest
Say they didn’t mean it.
You sever your ties to the land you grew up in
Until you are sobbing with yearning.
They tell you to go Home
And you do not tell them that you have always been trying to go;
Home was the land where dreams come true
Not the land wet with subtropical rain.
You are trying to put it into words
That this is supposed to be Home.
You have dreamed of coming back here
Every year that passed.
You are trying to explain.
Growing up Foreign means growing up in the space
In-between border and substance.
It means that there is always a part of you Here
And a part of you There.
And Going Home
Means splitting yourself into two.
Poetry (oh dear god, I wrote more poetry), 589 words
Trying to Explain Growing up Foreign
She’s sitting at a table trying to explain.
When you are at Home, you are Foreign.
You do not belong in the heart of a country.
You belong in the edges of things-not at the border
But the space between the border and substance.
When you moved, this is what happened:
At first they look at you with awe. You look foreign-
Your hair is the same color and your eyes the same color
Your nose flat like the rest of them and your eyes slanted
But you look foreign.
There is something in the way you move
That marks you as different. And then you open your mouth
And they can hear Foreign in every word you speak.
This is not supposed to be your home, this strange world
With their unfamiliar ways and their unfamiliar language.
You start to embrace being different.
Your identity is Foreigner.
You wrap resentment and admiration around yourself
Because that is what is given to you.
Years pass.
You learn to move like them. Learn their language.
Watch their television shows and listen to their music.
You can hear the heartbeat of the city
When you close your eyes.
Green grass and green trees and the smell
Of freshly rained-upon dirt are replaced
By tiled towers and steel and concrete wet with subtropical rain.
Home begins to move away from There and towards Here
Until you straddle the border of two worlds.
You step over it-
And then you move (back).
This is supposed to be Home. You look foreign-
Your hair is not the same color and your eyes not the same color
Your nose is flat and your eyes slanted
But this is the land where dreams come true
where nobody cares how you look-unless you look foreign.
There is something in the way you move
That marks you as different. And then you open your mouth
And they can hear Foreign in every word you speak.
This is supposed to be Home, this strange world
With their unfamiliar ways and their unfamiliar language.
You struggle to adapt
Your identity is Foreigner
You wrap mockery and scorn around yourself
Because that is what is given to you.
You grew up with moving pictures and reading comics
But they call them by foreign names
The shows they watched and the music they listened to
You called Foreign.
When you try to hear the heartbeat of the city
You hear green grass and green trees
Smell freshly-rained-upon dirt
Instead of tiled towers and steel and concrete
Wet with subtropical rain.
You fight your way into the land
Where dreams come true. Even though it is your birthright
They call you Foreign to your face and when you protest
Say they didn’t mean it.
You sever your ties to the land you grew up in
Until you are sobbing with yearning.
They tell you to go Home
And you do not tell them that you have always been trying to go;
Home was the land where dreams come true
Not the land wet with subtropical rain.
You are trying to put it into words
That this is supposed to be Home.
You have dreamed of coming back here
Every year that passed.
You are trying to explain.
Growing up Foreign means growing up in the space
In-between border and substance.
It means that there is always a part of you Here
And a part of you There.
And Going Home
Means splitting yourself into two.