Roots
I have a bad habit of throwing myself into the perpetual cycle of silence and apology.
In high school
my teacher told me that I couldn’t get into BYU because I wasn’t the right color of Mormon.
Like the color of my skin is a determining factor of my worth.
I agreed.
I couldn’t say anything else.
My voice had made a home out of my larynx and did not want to leave.
Stranger asks, “where are you from?” I say, “California.”
Stranger asks, “no, where are you really from?”
I want to say, “I don’t know, the womb?”
As if
the color of my skin is preventative of my nationality
As if
America is not able to produce anything other than pink tinted white
As if
I am lying
As if
my identity lies in some sort of mysterious concoction trying to be figured out
sorry
anyways
I was born in California.
My parents are from the Philippines.
Once
this boy said that he was going to pass off a girl he was not interested in
off to one of his roommates.
“They’re both Asian,” he laughed. “Why wouldn’t it work out?”
I wanted to say no.
No, she is not your dirty dishes piled with the leftovers that you did not want anymore.
I wanted to say stop.
Stop acting like people are animals that you want pure-bred
like we are coveted dogs that are eyed on the market.
I didn’t say anything.
Because the words I wanted to say were each a double-edged knife raking up my throat if I tried to speak.
Because
This
is an ode
to the people who have been gagged and handcuffed by the cookie cutter expectation that their skin is supposed to exist by.
This
is an ode
for the people whose voices have been drowned in a sea of white
ostracized
believed that they could never fill up a piece of the puzzle of this people.
This
is an ode
to the people who have long since realized that they are never first choice lovers
but always top of the list for fetishization
exotic animal
prized souvenir
this
is an ode
to the people who have been told that their face
that their skin
that their body
is not good enough in the way their partner likes it so they blamed and hated their roots and are trying swallow self-love again.
I want to take back my voice again.
I want to brave piercing the silent veil again
I am tired
of having to squeeze myself into a mold
crushing these bones
reforming myself into something that pulls validation out of a white society’s fingertips
I am done
trying to feed bits of my culture to the den of lions that will tear it apart with jagged teeth
I am stopping
trying to muscle cement into the crevices of broken understanding that swarm
with the potpourri of rejection.
I know you think I spoke out of line.
Pero sa pagkakataong ito
hindi ako nagsisisi.
But this time,
I am not sorry.