HYBRIDITY
Hybridity
The thing that makes me “me”.
My birth right, my weight to bear
Not This
Or That
But somewhere in between
Hybridity
The thing that makes me “me”
Or is it?
Because although my Mum’s from Brum and my Dad is Punjabi
What I see in them I don’t always see in me.
Hybridity
This is the cultural combination
Raw abrasion of two continents in dance.
I occupy the space where place and colour meet,
Where expectation fleets or complicates
Depending on the thought.
This is the cups of tea that found their way across borders
By force
By deception
By division
Forced submission
This is the cause
This is the root
And out the dust will rise
Hybridity
The thing that makes me “me”.
My emblem, my awkward friend,
Not here or there but somewhere in between.
Hybridity
The thing that makes me “me”.
Or is it?
Because although my Mum’s from Brum and my Dad is Punjabi
What I see in them I don’t always see in me.
Hybridity
Is the outsider
Is loosely linked
The foreigner at the function
Disconnected
Not quite rejected
But my difference is detected
It’s like: “No Grandad
I don’t wave my flag when the three lions play”
And it hurts every time that I hear you say some ignorant shit about my history.
And I know for a fact you’ve got love for me
So your ignorance is inconsistency.
And it’s like: “Sorry Auntie
I just don’t understand”
I don’t speak the language of my own fatherland
I’ve never set foot in your home, my past.
In school they used to say half-cast
And maybe I retained that shit
‘cause though they’re saying mixed race now
That still don’t seem to fit me in
See, the sentiment is sweeter, yeah,
But I still can’t see myself in there.
See, mixed means part one, part the other,
But I feel like I’m a whole new colour.
Hybridity
When I see my cousins I’m caught –
I don’t get that joke
I don’t know that quote
I feel alone.
I feel white when I’m with you.
I feel brown when I’m with them.
But on my ones I feel like neither
I’m a flower without a stem
I’m severed
Kept separate
This feels more like detachment than
Hybridity
The thing that makes me, breaks me,
Takes me to the brink of insanity
Because I can’t work out my identity
Hybridity
The best of both worlds
Transcending distance
Hybridity
The meeting place
The newest race
Hybridity
I am the missing link
The thing that finds the weakest chink
In the armour of this bigotry
Hybridity
This is culture intertwined
I am the one who crossed the line
I am hybrid
We are in between
Do not put me Here
Or There
Because I’m something else entirely
Something that is
Higher
Than
Me.
Hybridity
The thing that sets me free
Hybridity
My greatest liberty.
I’m not like Her
And I’m not like He
And that is the thing that makes me “me”.
by Jonah Sharma