I am a half-elf
Caught between two
Worlds that neither really
Wants to properly claim
Human (white, base)
And elf (asian, other)
And both
And neither.
Too slow (too foreign) to be one
Too fast (too western) to be the other
Unless the differences
That make up my existence
Are repressed
And shoved aside
---
An interesting human
Cultured, learned,
Full of facts and trivia
Not normal.
A bad elf
Undisciplined, clumsy
Cannot speak the tongues
Not normal.
They call me half-elf
Never half-human
Because it’s the other
Half
That is seen on my face
But my name is human
--
Half-elves don’t have
Happy stories
Because how could parents
Of different races (cultures)
Raise a child when one
Will outlive (abandon) the other
No place to call their
Own
Wanderers on the road
Travelers, diplomats (they never applied)
Because there is no homeland.
Yet half-elves
Breed true
---
We have no culture
No unified beliefs, practices
Because we are diaspora
Made by star-crossed lovers
But there are
No stories
Of the half-elves that found
A home
Either in melding their parents
And making something
New
Or finding their kind
And building a faith
On a shared understanding
---
Because half-elves
Do not belong.
Exist only in name
In cautionary tales
And never on paper
In a world where binary
Is much easier
To file away
Because your existence
Is a statistical error
That can easily
Round to zero.
