Where are you from?
You don’t sound feminine.
Can I hear you say that word again?
You pronounced it so weirdly.
The questions,
the remarks,
overwhelm me so much.
I am not safe. I am not myself.
Everytime I use my voice.
High pitched, western pronunciation.
Do NOT let the accent slip out when you say words like
album, sauce, calculator, half, cicada.
Spell “colour” like “color.” Omit the “U.”
“Recognise” with a Z.
That’s “ze,”, by the way. Not “zed,”
Trousers to pants.
With shame, I refuse to disclose my middle name.
Rutendo just becomes “R.”
Sometimes I say it like the English translation.
“Faith.”
Sounds better, right? Less “tribal.”
No one of my ethnicity is free.
No one of my status is seen.
We are not safe. We are not ourselves.
Molding ourselves into the American Dream,
My sister’s middle name; Kuzivakwashe to Kuzi.
My mother. Sharai, commonly mistaken as “Sharia”.
Nothing defies eurocentrism.
Nothing escapes the Western beauty standards, the colonization,
The SHAME of eating unconventional foods,
The SHAME of having an unconventional voice,
The SHAME of being an immigrant.
Is what they say.
No one is safe. No one is themself.
But,
in the end,
one must search and learn to find what little remains of themself.
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