Part of me smiles,

Part of me frowns.

One tells me to take a step north

But the other pulls me south

Like a rubber band, 

I am stretched and twisted and strained. 

Is satisfying everyone

Worth hurting myself?

My limit is near

I am tired of living in division.

Like an overworked rubber band, 

I snap.

I no longer ask who I am

Or where I belong.

Finding acceptance

Is not worth losing yourself.

This song brings attention to America's struggles with racism and the unfortunate dangers of simply being a different race in our country.

Several compelling lyrics:

41 shots, Lena gets her son ready for school
She says, "On these streets, Charles
You've got to understand the rules
If an officer stops you, promise me you'll always be polite
And that you'll never ever run away
Promise Mama you'll keep your hands in sight"

Is it a gun (is it a gun), is it a knife (is it a knife)
Is it a wallet (is it a wallet), this is your life (this is your life)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
It ain't no secret (it ain't no secret)
No secret my friend
You can get killed just for living in your American skin

I thought it would be like shooting stars. Like fireworks bursting across my skin, and me standing still, unafraid, because I’d know who I am. Who I can be. And it would leave me invulnerable, untouched. I thought it would be like—light streaking behind my eyelids in mockeries of motion, exhilaratingly bright and that would be okay. More than okay. I’d be alive, grounded, with light pouring off my skin and sparks pounding in my blood, and it would be carrying the sense of belonging. Knowing. 

But maybe that’s not quite how it works. Maybe identity (the fickle word and sense that it is) slips up behind us like a weight in our shadows. You create it when you stand tall in the light, and when you look back, there it is. Steady, reassuring. Maybe it’s less shooting stars, fireworks, and more a candle with wax dripping until it burns your hand. It’s the pain of discovery but not wanting to let go. It’s the light, flickering and guttering and unsteady, but there, so close you can almost taste it. It’s more gentle than starbursts, and so it aches, in itself. 

Maybe identity is sitting at the kitchen table, with a chipped mug of lemon tea, and letting your surroundings wash over you because you know where you are. Maybe identity is letting your feet slap against the pavement, feeling the freezing air curl through your limbs and lungs, the world whittling out around you because you know who, what, matters to you. Maybe it’s blocking that phone number, or pulling grandma’s recipe out of the oven, or pouring coffee (black, no sugar) into the same cup, again and again. Maybe identity is everything we are already doing—but pounded into a rhythm, stretched to the utmost, leading us onwards. 

And maybe my identity is me, washing my hair in too-hot water because it leaves my skin red and scalded and alive. It’s me, breaking pencils and graphite-clay leads because my thoughts jumble over each other, pressing slipshod into smooth paper. It’s laughing, letting the sound escape high into the air and paint dizziness across my temples. These are no shooting stars. But I look back, and I know, and I feel the weight. 

This, I think now, is identity. This is what it is like. 

a man tells his son, trying to explain

the wisdom of learning a second tongue.

It’s an old story from the previous century

about my father and me.

The same old story from yesterday morning

about me and my son.

It’s called “Survival Strategies

and the Melancholy of Racial Assimilation.”

It’s called “Psychological Paradigms of Displaced Persons,”

called “The Child Who’d Rather Play than Study.”

the language inside you, says the man.

But what does he know about inside and outside,

my father who was spared nothing

in spite of the languages he used?

And me, confused about the flesh and the soul,

who asked once into a telephone,

You’re always inside me, a woman answered,

at peace with the body’s finitude,

at peace with the soul’s disregard

of space and time.

Am I inside you? I asked once

lying between her legs, confused

about the body and the heart.

she answered, at peace with the body’s greed,

at peace with the heart’s bewilderment.

It’s an ancient story from yesterday evening

called “Patterns of Love in Peoples of Diaspora,”

called “Loss of the Homeplace

and the Defilement of the Beloved,”

called “I want to Sing but I Don’t Know Any Songs.”