You ask me,

If [I] were a word in the dictionary and someone flipped to [my] page, what would they find there? Essentially, what makes [me]…[me]? How did [I] become the person [I am] today?

 

You ask me this with the thought of giving me $1000 for my education.

While I would be ecstatic if I got it

Lemme say my words are worth more than that to me.

My history is not something to be paid for to hear.

There is no ticket booth, no show.

Only my reality

And my future education has nothing to do with my past.

Only everything to do with it’s influence.

 

So let me answer you with the words I chose to use.

Unrestricted because if I’m writing about me,

Why would I restrict myself?

 

If I were a word in the dictionary, I would be every word on every page and yet none of the above.

I am undefinable

Not the word “undefinable”  because that has a definition

I mean undefinable

As in “you can try to get to know me, but you’ll never see the real me since even I am looking for her”.

As in “you define me as rice and anime and all these weird t.v. game shows, but that’s not who I am”.

As in “a little bit of everything yet she fits in nowhere, only in the hearts of those who cared enough to know who she is as a person

And not as a word”.

As in “wow, she is…”

And that’s where the definition ends, unfinished.

But I am not unfinished either because I like to think I’m a work in progress

Not something cast away and forgotten.

I am a contradiction and yet as simple as they come.

A one-way road yet rainbow road level hard to drive through.

 

For the second question, let me ask you in return

What makes you you? Do you know?
It’s elementary, my dear Watson,

What makes us who we are,

What makes us different,

Is the same thing, ironically.

Our past makes us different.

Our thoughts make us different.

Everything we have that developed through the same scientific process of meiosis came out different for each of us.

While we like to think we’re all different,

We are all the same because of it.

We’re similar in that we are different.

So what makes you you,

and what makes me me is the history no one else can repeat.

 

I am who I am today because of all the little tricks I played growing up.

Jk, I was a good child (for the most part).

I have stopped and wondered what I would be like if I didn’t take that one step

Woke up a minute later

Or even blinked a second sooner.

I am who I am because I have done what I’ve done.

Every minute detail

Every miniscule thing

That’s brought me to be the smart, racial Asian girl I don’t dare to dream away.

I am happy to be the way I am

Lucky since not everyone is comfortable in their own skin here in America,

The supposed “Land of the Free”

But that’s a whole different story I can write you for one easy payment of

A question.

Just ask me

So, to the “Land of the Free”

This is why I’m me.

Well… just the highlights

 

I grew up not seeing race then one day race was all I could see.

Blinded.

It was awkward, being the only Asian girl in my whole grade

Eventually my whole school when my brother graduated.

I was teased,

I was harassed.

It doesn’t help when your birthday is the D-Day of 2001.

Eventually, I got over it.

I grew a tougher skin and though their words kept sinking in I didn’t feel it.

Just laughed.

Laughing, I learned, makes life and people a lot easier to deal with.

A lot friendlier.

Which is why I am not a serious person in person

Only in writing.

So while I joke a lot on the outside,

Inside, I feel cold and abandoned sometimes.

Somewhere along the line I started to believe this cold will last all my life

Because no one out there will melt it away or give me someplace to stay and call home

Because now we casually call each other “bae” or “boo” and easily say the words “I love you”

 

Lies

 

But that’s not all of who I am

I am not a person who plans out what she’s about to say

I just speak my mind.

Those who listen, listen.

Those who don’t, don’t.

I’ve had so much of the latter audience that I’ve given up filtering my words sometimes.

If no one cares to hear, why should I care what I say?
That’s a joke, I promise, I chose my words with care.

Honestly I hardly speak since I can’t find the right words.

Are there ever any right words?

Since I found words elude me like that chocolate I’m always craving at the oddest moments,

I speak through singing.

And when I do,

It’s only then that people begin to listen,

Because I have a good voice, they tell me.

But I don’t sing to be heard.

I sing for the need of it.

Like a bird, singing becomes the only thing I can do sometimes.

Another thing that makes me me is my short-term memory.

I don’t even know if I covered all the highlights in this “show”

But it’s getting too long.

I hope you enjoyed.

Part two coming soon to no theatres near you.

The ticket you purchased is yours to keep for memory’s sake.

Purchase another for the price of a question; I hope you remember.

So here I’ll bow out,

Blow a few kisses,

And just say remember kids,

Life always gets better,

Even when it gets worse.

 

A wink

 

A badoozle

 

And poof

Lights out