13. i think America is trying to kill me

i think America is trying to kill me
or
i think my confusion is eating my brain
i can't quite figure out which parts of me are mine
so my immune system attacks all of them in hopes i'll get the right
enemy
my friends all think i'm crazy
like, nothing will hold you back but you, Kat
this is the land of the free to be whoever you want
but really, they don't know what i see in the mirror
i see
intruder in my own skin, hyphen in my identity
somehow the American and Asian and queer and woman parts of me
don't fit together naturally
so i'm putting them in boxes
packing them up in neat little piles
defining where they go with black Sharpie
on one,
glutton. my American always keeps me wanting more
quiet. my Asian doesn't want me to say it
split. my queer has fomo, it can't figure out who to love next
weak. my woman wants me to wait for someone else to figure it out for me
and i'm an honest human
i want my truths bursting in air
giving proof to the night that i am still here
oh, say, does that fit in today's narrative
i'm losing track of my story
and every time i sit down to write
an Asian poem
i can't stop spitting about my home state New York
and how much i love bagels
but one time a Jewish guy kissed me, got yellow fever, and died of the heat
so maybe i'm not the kind of Asian you want me to write about
i can't stop thinking about my baptism
and how gay that shit is
how my mother failed as a parent when i started wanting women
how i'll never be saved, heaven auctioned my welcome mat
and i could buy it back if i sold out my bisexuality
and finally accept that a man will always be inside of me
wo(man)
i could never be complete without your dick
i could never compete without sucking
up to this shit system
where feminism isn't a given but a privilege
some people call it capitalism
i call it, forgetting that people who don't look like you are still people
or "America" for short
we have red blood on white hands that beat minority bodies blue
i'm saying that we are complicit too
when we forget that model minorities exist only to demonstrate how to bow properly but the darker your skin, the harder it is to straighten back up
and every time i sit down to write
a unity poem
my mind draws a blank
my hands
draw a question mark
because i don't know what unity is
i am a body bag of puzzle pieces that when fit together
show a picture of my obituary listing all the ways i've died trying to segregate the equal parts of my identity
i hope it tells you the truth
and i hope you are listening
cus i wrote this for you
i mean, i died for you
i mean, i died of uncertainty
i don't want you to die at war with yourself too
no more fallen soldiers who in another life were just
the American, Asian, queer, woman parts of you once
before this country issued a draft
and made them shoot each other
know that your identities don't belong in boxes, i mean coffins
it's hard to love yourself if you aren't alive so
think of the context
breathing is a different experience when above ground than when buried in it so
have mercy on the parts of you America has condemned
you are beautiful even when your reflection forgets
this puzzle will solve itself if you let it