AWAITING MY RETURN by Naheed Elyasi

Twenty five years have passed since I left my home.

Twenty five years since I belonged somewhere.

Twenty five years of being a chameleon; a nigger, a chink, a terrorist.

Being rich, being dirt poor.

I don’t fit in with my own people.

I am too American they say – too wild, a bad girl, disobedient.

I question, I have my own mind.

I don’t fit in with Americans either.

I am exotic.

I am foreign; it’s in my face, in my voice, in my accent, in my hair.

I don’t know who I am or who I should be.

I don’t want others to define me.

Why is that? Why is it that everyone is out for my soul, my identity?

I don’t have anything, yet I feel them wanting to take something away from me –

My spirit! They want to break me.

I will not be a nigger.

I will not be a chink, a terrorist or exotic feast for the white man.

I will be me; confused, lost, searching.

A part of me died in that journey.

The void has only gotten deeper.

I’ve often thought of going back, but fear keeps me paralyzed.

What if I don’t fit in? What if no one understands me? What if my void becomes more vast and endless?

These thoughts run amuck, keeping me paralyzed and stuck in awaiting my return to myself.

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AUTHOR BIO: Naheed Elyasi and her family fled Afghanistan after the Russian invasion and lived in Pakistan for one year. At the age of nine she came to the United States and grew up in North Carolina. She holds a degree in Communications and Fashion Design and currently works in Manhattan in Public Relations.