‘Part one’
February 27th, two thousand, fifteen,
Black shirt blue jeans, full of broken morals and bad raisings
Ignorance is bliss, but not as this, I’m done with the racists, White man drunk, angry at burger, not even hazing
Says “I want a white man to make my burger” not even faking
I spin around and look at the crowd in line.
Frozen, shocked, but doing what?
I felt stuck in time.
‘Pause’
Stuck in the moment of confused broken tokens, Stereotypes, media lies
and everything at the time that made this white man think that he’s right…
Think that anything that’s not standard print paper white
doesn’t belong to this fast food fantasy of burgers and fries
Fast forward to trump times, global awareness, woke activists and pandemics collide.
‘Part two’
Enchanted by slanted eyes and stereotypes,
Always felt a divide from cynical minds,
But never felt more of a divide besides restrictions and rights
because my perceived appearance just wasn’t right.
Lightness yellowish skin and accent, features defined,
Anxiety when boarding or walking through the mall
Double glances in the sight, and now instead
Hearing voices in my head
“Get off this tram”
(- other people, mime the words – old man, old woman)
“you’re not a local”
“Get off this land, bringing this disease with incense and bats”
And maybe it’s all inside my head,
dixon
Maybe,
But somewhat a part of you has to question the extremes of memes and humour
What deems the right to abuse the victims of the future
To set apart a world
where we
are all
just human
This poem was commissioned by Diversity Arts Australia as part of the I Am Not a Virus project. Supported by Australia Council for the Arts, Create NSW, Creative Victoria, City of Sydney, City of Parramatta and Inner West Council.
