I’m not really sure what to say,
I finally am starting to understand when people said, “That could’ve been me” or “That could’ve been my mom or dad,”
And that goes straight to my stomach,
And I can’t shake the feeling,
They made fun of the way I looked,
The way my words sounded speaking to my parents,
And I brushed it all off because that’s what we’re taught to do,
Weakness can’t be shown because we’d be taken advantage of,
They don’t know what you’re going through and they don’t have to,
But even through my happiest smiles,
People that look like me are starting to show up dead on the news,
The jokes are now echoes of a soul leaving this Earth too soon,
I wonder if they knew what kind of Asian they were before they pulled the trigger,
I wonder if it even mattered,
Always assuming that we’re the same,
Despite the fact that if you spun the globe and placed your finger randomly,
You’d hit Asia as much as you’d hit ocean,
But we took tests on naming the oceans long before learning about who from Asia came over here first,
Long before I knew that we were targets,
I always thought that we were different,
My friends ask me, “How do you know what kind of Asian that person is?”
It’s the way they speak their native tongue,
The way they greet each other,
The food they serve when you enter their house,
The way they laugh it off when you crack a joke that’s never funny,
A white person told me I had no business talking about race when I tried to stand in solidarity with the Black community,
I wonder if they’d shed one of their white tears at the loss of members of my Asian community,
As if it would just sweep the pain away,
I used to never worry about my parents leaving the house the way I do now,
I always knew my parents would do anything to stay out of trouble,
It’s the manners, the respect, the honor we were taught,
I always knew that my parents would still be made fun of by people passing by,
Now with masks I bet they can slip two or three racist jokes under their breath before making a sound,
Now it feels like life or death,
My parents tell my brother and I to keep safe,
Is now the time to not show weakness and fight through it,
Or is now the time I have to beg for help so that the violence ends,
I hope you know what it means now.
