by Anya Ivleeva, born in Russia, adopted to the USA.
I live in a world that isn’t made for me
Faces that don’t look like mine
Histories that don’t sound like mine
But I am expected to do everything the same
As everyone else
And I have to assimilate into this culture that will always view me as foreign
though inside I feel like I’ve only over been here.
I have to grin and bear it
I have to wake up everyday and act like
It’s not lonely to only see my facial features
Sparingly in passing
It’s not upsetting to have never known another Asian person.
To never hear my mother’s voice
Or to know what she looks or know the time I was born
To never know the life I could have had
If things were just a little bit different if she could have kept me
If she would have sung me songs to go to sleep
And if she loves rain as much as I do.
But to be expected to only show humility
When all my life
I’ve silently wondered these things to myself
In loneliness
In self loathing
How could I
In these circumstance be anything but angry?
Angry at my peers who mocked me
At my parents for “buying” me
And for my parents who gave me up
And the several institutions that allowed this to happen
All for this.
Nobody asks to be born
That might be true
But nobody asks for such a lonely life
And nobody asks for such a difficult life
And nobody tells you what the fuck you’re supposed to do about all of it.
Then one day you’re 28 trying to make a difference in the world but have to take a cocktail of antidepressants because
Being adopted doesn’t always mean the picturesque American dream
That worked so well for my parents.
How do I make my family proud?
How do I know if she’d be proud of me?
How do I hold all of this privilege and all of this trauma simultaneously?
Resources
Our separation bears down on both of us
Longing (music)