Red Underlined

How have I grown?

What have I learnt?

How is that different from what they’d imagined?

Am I less than what I should’ve been?

Or am I just enough to fit in?

What I’ve learned comes from you, your teachings, your culture, your movies too.

And in those words, I’ve come to learn,

That success is based on adopting your view of the world.

I have been praised, celebrated too,

For knowing what I know and acting how I do.

But in this knowing, what have I lost?

My family’s respect, a history untouched.

A world, that I could’ve held in my hands

Lost forever because I wanted so much

To be like you, to be one of you.

That I hid my lunch, changed my clothes, my hair,

And shunned my culture too.

A language my ancestors fought so hard for,

Dies with me because I did not learn,

Instead, I chose to not be “fob”,

And now my children will suffer it too.

A world come together,

What a wonderful view.

The idea of sharing and learning something new.

To work together to create a harmonious urbanity,

Is really just a disguise for Western modernity.

An oppressor, my people had spent years to fight off,

Just for me to come here and forget what they taught.

To feel ashamed of my heritage, trying to hide my history,

Is to spit in the face of all those who walked before me.

I’ve believed what I’ve been told, refused to learn otherwise,

Now when I type my name,

I see it red underlined.

Telling me I’m wrong, showing me I’m different.

Hitting “ignore all” trying to brush it under the rug.

This is the curse laid before me,

To live in this world, to live in this country.

To grow up, fitting in, being accepted,

Only by oppressing myself to fit your directive.

The narrative is told so easily,

Brown girl gets bullied,

Till she loses her identity.

Only to find out too late, one day,

All she’s lost, and everything she’s betrayed.

So, I learn to embrace my culture as if I’m new to it,

And I write my name proudly,

Enjoying its originality.

Taking steps every day,

To embrace every part of me.

Not only so that you accept me, but so that I, and you, can celebrate me.