I am from

By Amiee Zhao

“I am from,” a creative writing submission to the EXPEDITIONS section by Amiee Zhao. This is a writing growing out from a rigorous, performative training session at her internship, a confusion about her linguistic struggles, and a protest against identity politics.

I am from a space in between

a bitter gulp of my heart, a dazzling confusion when 

teachers asked us to write this poem

starting every line with “I am from,” then insert identities

and yet I have been obedient for my life, so

I am from a corner filled with wrinkled scratch papers

I am from the wasted stories they tell, those which no one cares to recycle

I am from the run-up sentences in them, choked with breath of tears

I am from the dirt resting on the foreign characters, left by someone

from a similar place as I am, but with a different anger, solitude

I am from the lost emotions, tented up on an enormous skeleton

I am from the excess of feelings undeliverable by words 

those embedded in the skeleton of recognized language

I am from a void of words, submerged beneath the organization, 

yet above which, total blankness

I am from a space in between