we are not your aesthetic.
be asian — but don’t just take my
getting “konnichiwa” shouted at you in the streets
even though you’re not japanese
getting asked to speak your language for others
as though it were some sort of circus animal trick
getting asked about musical and TV genres
you don’t give two fucks about
by some bright eyed cracker who claims
to know so much about your culture
when all they know is kdramas
getting asked “are you chinese”
by everyone and their cousin
when you’re vietnamese, thai, hmong, or other
getting told you “don’t look asian”
because you don’t have black hair,
small eyes, and lily white skin
and hating having to live up to that
(and the dark asian girls? where are they
in your silly makeup tutorials? oh right,
nowhere… i wonder why that is)
creepy, crunchy guys telling you
about their asian fetish as the grease drips from their faces
and you inhale the scent of how many weeks they have gone
without washing their ass
entire sides of the internet dedicated
to fetishizing you, to posting porn about you,
even having kinks in which they want you
simply because you are asian
and not even being able to google
without some fetishy bullshit popping up
seeing entire websites dedicated
to getting the fetishists those
'submissive asian wives' they want so badly
not ever being able to speak your own language
without being mocked, getting “ching chong”
what random strings of gibberish with an -ong or -ing
wanna be half asian? fine
be half asian — but don’t just take
the tears i cried when i watched
a video called “why asian girls
go for white guys” because
i was living proof that the stereotype
is true — an embarrassment
how much i hated myself for not
being able to fit the stereotype
of what a han chinese person is “supposed”
to look like — i was too hairy,
my hair was too light, my eyes
weren’t small enough, my eyebrows
were too fat, too thick, too bushy and when
i told people my ethnicity they said i
"didn’t look chinese" and i didn’t have the words
to tell them how much of a slap that was
not just to my face but to my very soul
how i was always afraid to speak out
against anti-asian racism because i thought
that my opinion would only ever half-count
how many stereotypes i played into
no matter how uncomfortable they made me
just to avoid the dreaded ‘w word’ —
eventually led to me letting myself
be taken advantage of in ways
…and until you wear that on your face,
it doesn’t matter what makeup you put on
it doesn’t matter how real your wig looks
or what you do to your eyes
you will never be or look asian
you will never be or look half asian
you will never be or look like anything
gummygunk
jimmyeatworldofficial
gracieabrams
ellievsbear
blakekathryn
