nothing at once

“American land”.

That’s what they’re talking about.

The bald-headed men in business suits are arguing about American land.

About how we landed on American land, the "legal ones".

But I think by legal ones he means the citizens, or rather, the English-speaking, burger-eating, pledge of allegiance spewing people.

All the words are determined to tell me this land isn’t mine.

Even the airport's white, polished floors that reflect me, its polar antonym, tells me how I don’t fit into this land.

It’s strange, hearing the “Welcome to Los Angeles” overhead but feeling this space devoid of color; lacking the promised welcome. It feels like my family is the only color around.

We are walking, although I'm not sure why we are going so fast. People around me are talking, but I don't understand the verbatim of their laughs.

I’m unsure of how I am characterized, but I hear a man yelling “all immigrants move forward for immigration” and I see him in the corner of my eyes.

There is my characterization, simply labeled as an immigrant to this nation.

-------

We live in this home now, or rather I should call it a house, a beige outside, and an off-white picket fence; only a grain of rice different from the rest.

My days used to be different then, but now they are homogenized. Go to school, deal with the jeering from the boys and the looks from the girls.

They tell me that I am different, as if I didn’t know that, but how could I not.

I’m not Connor or Tiffany, no, my name is mutilated during roll call.

The henna on my hands is weird, whereas your eye-gouging puka shell necklace is seen as normal.

The food from my tiffin smells bad but apparently, your cold Lunchable pizza is appetizing?

My first steps in the door of this house and suddenly I am lacking in my former heritage.

The curry I used to love is now a stench so pungent I can’t run away from it.

It combines with the burning incense, the smoke of which surrounds the gods I’m supposed to worship.

My mother sees me “tumhari din kese thha?”.

“It was fine,” I say, trying to breach access to every aching bone just to get the energy to answer.

I used to reply in Hindi, but now it feels wrong; like I'm enacting as an imposter that doesn’t belong. My dull response seems to disappoint her.

“I mean, it was great!” I say, adding more hormones in my voice, trying to add a smile to my face to attempt to let this superficial serotonin set in.

She spent her life to get me the American dream, lying is the least I could do.

She hasn’t caught the lies since the plane has landed, the dream takes too much attention, it has become a higher priority child, and I won’t try and break the pedestal, I understand.

“Mama I’m going to study”.

“Ok dikri, maru mitthu beti” (my sweet daughter).

How funny to have that exchange be laced with lies, I guess she hasn't noticed how like a gobstopper my sweetness has faded, all that remains is an unknown flavor, one that I can’t blame her for not wanting to savor.

I go to my room and close the door, I didn't use to.

I bury myself in my bed and frown, that’s what my jaded face has gotten used to.

I am too foreign for the outside, but somehow too foreign for this inside.

There is a word I resonate with now, “firangi” (foreigner, or rather, white foreigner) the word I was called in my former home, the word I feel now in my house or should I say, this house.

That's why, for me, this is not a home. That's why outside feels colder and colder even in the depths of the California summers.

I feel like the only place I belong is frozen in time, amid air; but I have come to understand that even gravity doesn’t want me there. It isn’t my space to take, I won’t rob the purity of air with my illegal embrace.

I've stayed in this state for too long, the darkness has set outside.

I’m sure the time for dinner came and went, but we no longer eat together, in that way my family has adapted to the American style.

It’s a blue night, I go for walks on these nights, getting out of my daily daze and heading towards the door.

My mother stops me, but I hoped that she wouldn't.

You see I don't cry, but sometimes streams of an unknown liquid run off my cheeks and fall to my shirt to tell me that they were there.

I never know when the glaciers melted and today I forgot to check before I approached the door, but luckily I don't notice any stain, and with that I took a breath of relief.

“Tumhari piche dekho, aur koi puche thho fir angrezi me bolo” (look behind you, and if somebody asks, speak in english).

I find it amusing that she thinks I can still speak her language anymore, but she is sorely mistaken, and yet I attempt. “Me jaraai hoon”.

“Huh?”

I dare not repeat it for my further humiliation, I can't keep trying to prove myself when the self in question is unknown.

“I’m leaving”.

I close the door quickly and in doing so the somber feeling dawns on me once again just as the sun dawned on these rooftops.

Every time, the worst part of my walk is choosing.

Choosing the direction between left and right, I hate that there are always two sides in my life and I have to choose one.

I always, always have to choose one, one side, I can't go down both roads.

As my brain chooses, I stare at the ground, or rather, observe it.

It’s spotlessly clean and I feel rather strange.

It's a drastic transition from the polluted roads where I had to stare at the ground in order to not trip on the trash.

Different from the dust that was stomped into the earth that I believed could very well be cremated ash.

And when I used to look up then and ignore the pollution on the ground, I would see a smoky cinnamon sky, the sky was dyed with a brown dye.

Now, of course, I see distant stars twinkling away, in between the trees of the suburban streets the lights in the distance are play their games.

As I walk, I think about this land, this soil that has been usurped by these american people, but I guess now that means me.

In my dissociative uncertainty, I speak to my companionless mind. “Me kither hoon, nai…me kon hoon?” (where am I, no…who am I?).

“Ye rath itne sundar hai, me be sundar hoon?” (tonight, it's so beautiful, am I also beautiful?).

My legs have now become a separate entity, taking me along with them on their journey, waddling in between the cracks of the sidewalk and taking up every inch of it in the process.

“Muje nai pathe me kither jarai hoon, bas ye rasta hai mere paas, aur kuch nahi” (I don't know where I am going, I only have this road and nothing else).

My personified feet have now changed their course to the vacant road.

My eyes note the dotted dark gray gravel and the reflective yellow stripes.

I walk towards the divider, the colorful split in the lack of color.

I laugh at my thoughts, the thoughts that I can only utter because I know that if this was a movie this would be my secluded scene, sad and somber.

“Meri dil dooktha hai dono angrazi or hindi me” (my heart, it hurts in both English and Hindi).

It's sad, I realize, the dialogue I am engaging in with my subconscious.

I once again notice how I am in the middle of both the street and this night, looking down from my henna dyed hands to my California vans, the feeling of displacement washes over me, I realize the oxymoron of a human that I am.

And yet, this is where I feel at home. In the middle of two sides, two sidewalks, two people's homes and lives.

I feel my divided mind coexisting as I can finally feel like I no longer have to make any life-altering split personality decisions.

I am neither right nor left, neither air nor earth, neither from this land nor that one, in plain words i feel as though i am a being with no background.

I don't know who I am, maybe none, maybe all.

Indian, American, weird, or different, I think right now all I know for certain is that I am an immigrant.