"What are you?" he asks. "I mean what are you mixed with?"
He does not mean for the question to be rude. He has never seen someone quite like me, and the question has been bouncing around in his head for at least 2 minutes. So he blurts it out.
"Jamaican, Chinese, and White," I tell the stranger. I smile politely and attempt to mask my discomfort.
He only looks more intrigued. He thinks I am odd, oddly beautiful. Like a rare bird he has found. Not a bird one would ever keep. Just something to look at in awe.
"What are you?" the test paper asks, though in a more formal way. "Please bubble your ethnicity." I hesitate. I think about bubbling 3 different races, but I just end up filling in the bubble that says "other".
"What are you?" I ask my mirror. "Are you a freak? Why don't you look like everyone else? Why do they stare at you?"
"You are not pretty," i tell my reflection. "You are just different. The kind of different that no one likes. The kind of different that scares and intimidates people."
My reflection pauses for a moment. She smiles with kind eyes, forgiving my insult.
"You are everything," she tells me. "You are the sun, the moon and everything in between. You are a scorching hot fire, yet you are cold spring water. You are good and bad. You are you and I am, too. But most of all, you are human. Just like anyone else.
This poem is about the struggles and insecurities i used to have as a child of mixed race. Then growing up and learning to love myself.