Other Half

My partner.

He’s the one who completes me.

Minds functioning harmoniously.

We undoubtedly are two halves of a whole.

The world is kind to me. 

Pale skin and Eurocentric features 

Have never been judged.

Praise rolls off of their tongues.

“Your skin is so beautiful.”

 “Your eyes are so big, I hate mine.”

Yet the world is unkind to him.

When gazing upon his epicanthic folds,

His own birth place yells at him to return back to a home 

That was never his to begin with.

They spit “Chinese” out of their mouths, as if it was burning their tongues.

“Go back to China, you Chinese.” 

Yells the woman who’s Asian herself. 

We stand, stunned.

“Is she not Asian herself?”

His neighbor turns to him in the elevator.

“Are you delivering Chinese food?” 

Which could be seen as a mere misstep.

If it weren’t for the fact that he was holding a pizza box. 

And it makes my own tongue burn,

Burn with the things 

That I wish they wanted to understand.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs.

That he’s the most beautiful thing, race included.

So to the world,

Him and I have the same passions and desires,

The same morals and views,

The same tastes in music and foods.

We think the same.

We touch the same.

We hear the same.

We taste the same.

We offer up all the same.

So how dare you talk poorly upon someone based on what your own eyes perceive. 

You are the one who should be judged.

You are the flawed one. 

You are judging a human for what makes them human.

You are the one who should go back, not him.

Go back to when, in your mind, humans were all simply just humans.

Is the only redeeming quality a human has

Their appearance?

You say it’s about race. 

But you fail to realize that he and I are both half White.

If you knew this fact, would you only like half of me? Half of him?

Him and I both have the same amount of

“Whiteness”

Yet I would never be told to go back to Puerto Rico, 

like he does with China.

You are ignorant, but I know you won’t change.

So I am not looking to persuade you, 

I just want you to listen

To the person whom you’ve never discriminated against, 

But who walks through life in similar racial shoes of those whom you have.

You tear off the smiles of the people who desperately crave to be loved by you.

People who think and act all the same, 

People who even try to change themselves for your approval.

I won’t beg for you to do differently, but I still must inquire

How can you hate his other half, but not me?