Check Mark Mindset - A Poem by Layla Razek

We choose 

If I am a dot

In a paint by numbers,

That stretches across the line. 

If that line needs to be a boundary.

If that line needs to be a closed door. 

Slammed! Shut! 

A hand reaches out – to open that door? Yes and 

No because they drag me

Through that door. 

Run me through like 

The freshness of spring dirt off celery down the drain

Particles of toxic lead safely stored in the Brita filter

Yolk of an egg as the white trickles through patient hands.

Whites are examined for shells, for bits of yellow, for anything

Non-white. 

I need to be pure. 

Run me through because

It saw me reclaiming my space and was

Confused. 

Pulled me out of my freedom

To run me through 

The processor. The disassembly line of 

Chicken and pigs and animals and objects to be consumed:

Of who am I where are you from what are you wait why does your dad have blue eyes wait you’re not Asian your kids are gonna be so pretty so you don’t speak Arabic your hair isn’t curly wow your afro looks good today so are you really Black then I knew you were Moroccan (I’m not) You look so egyptian (I’m 1/8) What traditional foods do you eat (shepherds pie) you know patois right (you never taught me and I never asked and I didn’t know what it was) 

Where are you from?                                                                                           Why are you here?

 Canada

Where are you from?                                                                                       You’re not from here

Montreal

Where are your parents from?                                                                     They can’t be from here

Canada

Where are your grandparents from                                                   They really can’t be from here

½ this 1/4 that 1/4 this wait 

That’s not true. 

1/something that 1/something this 1/something that 

Is it my fault

That everyone is mixed? 

Because you seem frustrated

That I wasn’t empty

Before you asked.

That I was a dynamic work of art

Before I was framed by its words

Smooth, and long, and slow beings chopped up

Into julienned slices then 

Diced. 

(Asian. Black. Latino. Indigenous. White. Circle one.)

Check mark mindset.

Dulls the sharpness of empathy.

Interrupts my existence,

To interrogate.

Bright horrible lights. Smooth floor. Cracked chair.

Flashlight in my eyes. Held there.

I am a usual suspect.

Nothing until proven one thing.

But when I confess. When I lie.

They want more. 

I’ve become a performer

Who pieces together an identity

Until it makes sense

Until I am not half-white anymore

They wanted their cups

Half-full

And I keep pouring.