Isabel Cruz: When My Classmates Call Me Foreigner
immigrant
when i talk to my brothers,
my mother tongue dripping off my teeth like honey,
they do not understand; cannot comprehend that
the honey was the first thing my parents gave
us; that the honey they cannot taste is the honey
from our motherland that my parents will never
have again
there is a difference in knowing that you
were raised in one place and knowing
that your roots were purposefully yanked out
so that they could be grown somewhere else –
somewhere along the line, you think to
yourself: “what right do i have to drink the
water of this land? what right do i have to glean
the nutrients of their soil?”
what right do i have to exist as a human in
a country that refuses to call me their own,
despite the fact that i now consider it my home?
when my classmates call me foreigner,
as though my mouth cannot curl around the
same slang as theirs, as though my stomach
has not gotten used to the same food as them,
as though my feet have not walked the same roads
as them –
as though all my years of growing up in this
country meant nothing at all. sometimes i wish i can
sink between the folds of the concrete just so
i can say that i am here,
i am here,
i always have been.
i know that i am not dead
but my body does not exist on one plane;
i am like a ghost, floating between
Heaven and Earth, between Sky and Sea,
not knowing where she’s allowed to be.
am i one or another?
how can i belong there when i do not know how to
live there anymore?
“but how can you consider this place home
when you were never born here?”
i am a semi-colon, a hypothesis –
a hyphen in an otherwise perfect sentence
and it both irks me and excites me
that i am a bridge between two different
worlds that would otherwise not mix
that would otherwise not co-exist
that would otherwise like to pretend
the other is a myth
i am one of the million dust motes swept under
the rug one of the million names cancelled out
one of the million children split into two
and forced to choose
between just one
version of
themselves
Isabel Cruz was born in The Philippines but raised in Singapore. She now has two places that considers home. Isabel is a 20-year-old writer and poet who believes that stories are one of the strongest things on earth; she wants to be able to weave ones so beautiful she could inspire generations. As of right now, however, she is eagerly and enthusiastically publishing her work on Instagram and Harness Magazine. Instagram
