“Write”, he says,
And I feel like all the strangers
In the old westerns who
Had to dance before the bullies’ bullets.
“Write about being an alien”, he says,
Meaning well, trying to find some solid ground
For me to fix my roots into this strange land.
To be an alien…what does that mean?
What does it mean not to be an alien?
I know how it feels to be alien,
But what it means? This I do not know.
I will try,
For pleasing him is the only way out of this trap
Unless, like a fox or wolverine,
I gnaw off the part of me that holds me here,
Abandon it entire,
And limp through the world
Like a beggar from Victory Square.
There may be some honour in this, but it is not mine.
Thus, enchained, I must write.
“My Life as an Alien” by… whoever.
No-one here ever pronounces my name right,
Or knows its history,
So it doesn’t really matter who I call myself.
Immigration has passed me, I have
All the stamps and seals and signatures
To say that I am allowed to be here.
I may not work, for I am not a citizen;
I can be told to leave without warning,
And I am always under suspicion.
I must now speak only the stranger’s language,
Forgo my own tongue, and my native ways:
They are not acknowledged here.
The final part is the sadness.
Not knowing what is me and what is the other,
Everything I do is strange.
Lost between what was and what might be
Forever finding pieces of myself missing,
I blur at the edges:
When I return home, I am a ghost.