by Mirzya Syed
Sometimes I wish
I didn’t speak American
Let me explain
I don’t belong here
Where my parents have to pause in search of words
That could free them from the indictment of strangers
Sometimes I wish there was a way to go back
Never having left
Let me explain
I’d see you where you could have been born and you’d see where I could have lived
And it would not matter that we were wearing shalwar kameez
While we sat on our own grass
And that my brother played basketball in his own yard
But sometimes the ball went over to the other side by mistake
Our neighbor would not throw a steel shovel at our house
While we had a family barbeque
The windshield would not be shattered by a brick
The neighbors would not tell their children
Not to stand with my sister and brother at the bus stop
And we would not get anonymous warning letters
The week we moved in
My dad would not start his work days dreading the daggers of his colleagues
And my mom would not say
I think we should hang an American flag on our window
Because the country she’s called home for 25 years still strikes her as unfamiliar
And the air is still cold
Maybe we’d come here one day
And they’d make fun of our accents
But at least we’d belong
To our countries back home
Sometimes I wish
Every time I hear someone’s voice crack with vulnerability
I didn’t speak American.
Mirzya Syed is a Barnard College alumna who Co-Founded The Muslim Protagonist Symposium at Columbia University in 2012. Since then she has worked for a child-welfare non-profit for NYC Civic Corps where she developed mentoring programs for youth in foster care and young mothers and is currently a graduate student at Drexel University in pursuit of her career in community health. She is passionate about literature, fighting inequalities, and her Pakistani-American-Shia hyphenated identity.
