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At My Doorstep

Imprinted on Our Identities
By Nehir Johnson, Grade 10
12-Apr-23
At My Doorstep


Grade 10 Language and Literature students completed these poems as part of their unit about "Decolonizing Language" to uncover the emotion and values conveyed in our words. Students wrote about their multilingual identities, the family values shared across dinner tables, and their inspiration to find their own definition of gender or success. The pieces shared in this series explored their experiences as multi-locals whose many moves have imprinted on their identities. 

At My Doorstep

Where are you from? 

I try to find myself in the rubble of your memories & warm embrace,
because I cannot build you, the stones are too small to grasp.
I hold on with devotion to your hand
as you guide me through tight alleys and tangled highways,
But I never see your face, even with the bluest pearl of skies.
Your riddled identity is a burden on my back
I stumble on my own path to find who you are
so I can pity my stupidity and sulk as you laugh.
I would always cross the burning desert if I had you by my side.

Where are you from?

People say that I need you and should wear you like a crown,
Yet your jewels prick my blood and leave a stain I can never wash out.

I smile, I pout, mystify - I joust
Are you one or everywhere?
For I feel like I will never know,
As you hide between the trees.

Where are you from?

I knock on every door,
But I am faced with silence,
waiting with a full suitcase.
I go from one to the other, knocking even louder, louder & louder.
Hands of urgency on my back, with my face plastered on a door seeking for an answer.
I force my way in because my heart is aching.
I wish I could split my heart into pieces and place it gently on every doorstep.
So when another door is opened,
I know that they know I visited,
So I can finally feel completed.

Where are you from?

Only if I knew how everyone could hold onto you
with the beating of your heart.
Cry me a river, so I can stroll the antiquities of your streams.
Only your shoreline has become a figment,
As if it evaporated in heat.

Where are you from?

I wonder if now the world is but one ocean.
The waves moving freely, gathering pace.
Perhaps that's what happens when you're adrift,
You fear that the perfect circle of blue is all that exists.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Nehir Johnson is a Grade 10 student at the International School of Helsinki.

 




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