Hannah Seo
To the Taiwanese boy in my 3rd grade class
Even now I am sorry
for avoiding your eyes (I tried to be subtle), your
presence — self-preservation
demanded I protect the façade with which I had
all those little white children fooled. You were
a threat, your existence
a foil, an unwanted origin story; my perfect English
made me taller, my perfect grades forgivable, neutralized
my eye shape (your fragmented
sentences only made yours smaller). God forbid we be
classed together — surely they see I’m domesticated,
passable, a copacetic facsimile
who can spew out vocabulary like copacetic facsimile —
a whole generation of belonging put articulation in my mouth
and ice in my eyes. Tongue bleached
(what was your name again?), ears resentful (hey, what did
he say?): how can I be your interpreter, why should you tint
my unpigmented selfscape —
the one I present with neither scent, nor taste, nor texture.
This poem was originally published in Barzakh Magazine on July 11, 2020.