Refugee

"I took a chance with my heart,
I feel it taking over" -Drake

I'm not an immigrant kid, I'm pretty much a refugee kid. Given, I'm a refugee kid with a laptop and a suburban home and $6000 braces but still a refugee kid. And given, the family has climbed the privilege ladder over the generations, from the no food, no medicine, war generation, to the two jobs manual labor lower middle class generation, to the MP3/ facebook/ laptop having/ biggest problem is men (yeah I'm THAT lucky), Colby College going/ world traveling generation. I think I'm privileged compared to my parents and most of the world and they think they're privileged compared to their parents and most of the world. But especially in the United States, me and some of the friends in the same predicament as me, suffer from minority guilt disorder for having things so much easier than so many others. And the irony is that because my parents and other parents think they're privileged compared to their parents and others back in their homeland, they don't show us their struggle.

I'm not a sentimental child. I'm not a sentimental friend (as evident by the fact that some of my friends know me better through this blog than through interaction). I want a lot, personally and professionally. What my parents have (kind of have) is not good enough for me. In the midst of that pursuit though, to tie back to the typical My posts, I've left behind people who can't "interact" with me on my superficially informed "anthropological" level. "You talk White," my brother says. I don't know what that means but I don't think I talk "White" since there are plenty of uneducated, biased, uninformed White people but I do think my family I have "family" conversations about food, and clothing, and good looking people because I can't explain to them in English or Vietnamese about this blog and about my passions.... Which is weird because I'm pretty much a refugee kid and not an immigrant kid, so I was that close to being part of not even living the life of my parent's generation but of having the life of my grandparent's generation... and um, the girl is still Black.

Food for thought, right?

Also, when I write I make decisions. Writers are fucking crazy, crafting things at 4 in the morning, hair messy, mind spinning. I made a decision today.

I crafted this baby at 4 in the morning on May 19 with the word "once" consuming every ounce of my head space. It needs too much work but I really like it in a way because it was a free write and it was honest. If only I could give each word/syllable its due when I read it... the way I meant for them to be read when I wrote it.

I write the way I do because I'm a refugee kid and English books, poetry books, books... are often written for those who don't run around with two kids and two jobs and are forced to learn another language and adapt to another home. Spoken word is raw, it's deep, it's love, it's meant to be heard the way love, pain, memory, embrace is meant to be felt.

And I know, I don't show that I'm a refugee kid often, and I don't hang around my people often, and I don't often share in the struggle... but when I write, I don't write to be fancy, I don't write for the "technique" of "real poets"... I have this blog because first I have revelations, feelings, opinions, emotions that I want to share to anyone interested, second I express what I feel better through writing than conversation, and third I write for the everyday Refugee kid, for the everyday person.

And then, one day I'll learn Creole along with Spanish and Japanese by having the ability to take these classes. Also I want to play the violin/harp/flute and maybe, as slow as I am with my incontinence and ability to pick up on social cues, still go to grad school and not be a refugee the way anyone imagines a refugee.

Embrace

Once and only once
could a blueprint be implanted
And a first love spring
with a “hello, my name is… what is yours?
Let me take you on a tour of
my story, let me show you,
once, pain. Inject my craze as
your creativity and claim
our story as we could only once
be implanted with my grief,
as your pen
in your gut
where there was once,
butterflies for me with a
first touch leading to
a first smile, which led to a first time
these eyes collide and a love
like an imprint, that could once,
conquer all realities” even as the first once,
was eventually
replaced by a second wave of won-
ders- etched into eternity
Once, there is a first once, laid in history,
You remain, once, the only puzzle piece.

The Word Empathy