Mother Tongue

english is my mother tongue

because my own mother was afraid 

to teach me hers.

as if hindi’s rough edges, 

would taint me,

burden me,

and otherize me.

and so a coat of fresh white paint 

was plastered over my brown body.

the same brown body that danced kathak 

every saturday morning in tenafly, new jersey 

where i’d tie bells around my ankles 

and do chakkars in my guru’s basement. 

until the soles of my feet burned.

that’s when my guru would call me upstairs and fill my stomach with food,

dosas and idli sambar, 

the same food i told my mother to hide when my school friends came over 

because i was scared our samosas would scare them away.

and so she bought lay’s potato chips

and i’d beam at their shiny, yellow labels, 

reminders that i was american. 

american like burgers on the fourth of july, 

american like the star spangled banner,

american like the kids at school,

who i loved

who i wanted to be.

i’d watch them descend from staircases

and glide down hallways

as if they they were made of gold,

as if they were worth more than me.

and when i heard them call me dirty, 

or my hair too thick,

i wore sunscreen in the winter

to make my skin lighter. 

but to them, 

i was still riya,

another addition to the sea of brown bodies.

see me.

tell me i am saya

 and not the brown girl to my right.

i am tired,

bored,

angry.

angry like that man 

in the restaurant 

on 74th and 2nd

who banged his fists on the glass table 

when my family was being too loud.

“go back to your own country and act that way,” he yelled,

hatred, like blood, dripping off his words, 

like we had stolen what was his.

thieves,

hungry for his country. 

i don’t like talking about that day,

i don’t enjoy the guilt that plagues my skin when i tell these stories

because my voices tell me “it’s not that big of a deal” and “they’re bigger things in the world

and think of your brown sisters who came before you, 

the oceans they crossed,

the stories they stomached to bring you here.

 and think of your mother and father 

who walked through fire 

to place the world before your eyes.

think of the charcoal stains on their bare feet.”

four years ago i would have stomached this story.

i tell it now because 

i am whole.

pieced together by my mother, grandmother,  and friends of color,

lost in the beauty of my culture,

thanking the sun for painting me with a heavy hand,

drowning myself in the sweetness of my homeland’s language.

but mostly,

i tell this story so that

the next 

brown girl 

won’t have to.