I had a moment of flashback tonight. Bolivia, mid 90s. We came home from a party to a silent house, white Italian marble floors, inlaid wood walls. Omar, my boyfriend at the time (all that marble belonged to him, of course, I was just a teenaged wolf in a lace dress). At the party people had asked me where I was from and I told them, Western Samoa, because birthplace was the only anchor point that seemed fixed in a constantly moving self. Later, in the quiet gilded house, Omar hit me in the face, hard, hard enough to crack loose something deep, something that held my skin in a way that made it mine and nobody elses. Never say that again, he said, nobody gives a crap about the stupid shit island you were born on. From now on you say America, you tell them you are American, that you were born in Chicago. Chicago is a real place, Chicago is a word that means something here. I held my bleeding face and I laughed. I was spilling out red and alive, hot blood through cold fingers. Bright red onto white lace and young pale skin and white Italian marble floor. Go on then. Hit me. I can take a hundred hits, a thousand. Hit me till there is no skin left to change. Hit me till your hands are as broken as my face. Tell me who you think I should be. It wont change a thing. My laughter frightened him, it wasnt what he wanted. Im laughing still. He was just a sign post, a stopping point on a very long journey. A brief second of thought years later, reduced to these few words quickly passed over. And I am still not from Chicago.
Posted on: Fri, 21 Nov 2014 07:16:27 +0000
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