#dblues

Diaspora is knowing nothing,

not your language,

your great-grandmother's name

or even the country you came from.

Diaspora is an ugly word,

disguised as a pretty one

the hiss of the s and the flow of the ra

that you hate saying.

Diaspora is a stab in your heart

whenever you use the word

the only word you know

to say you're not at home

and you never will be.

Diaspora is a sixth sense,

the sense of warmth in your heart

when you find something like home.

Like when you eat your Aunt's soup,

or your Ima's kugel,

and you can taste the memory

of a thousand bowls of soup

at a thousand seders,

filled with family and laughter.

Diaspora is when you look for your homeland,

but you're told you have no right.

It's when you find your language,

and you speak in bits,

little, ketzat, three-word sentences

telling your Ima

your plans for the weekend,

smattered in English.

And you go inside,

to go to class,

your best friend greets you

(The one that knows she doesn't understand)

and you respond like you would to your Ima,

forgetting you're not in that world

anymore.

And that she thinks ma means mother

instead of what

Diaspora

is stolen conversations in class,

unspoken,

rolling your eyes at the stupid goyim

not the good kind, the wise kind,

but the stupid kind,

that thinks they understand,

and won't accept that they don't

and never will.

Diaspora is wanting to wander,

(of your own will,

not the way your ancestors did,

because of cruel goyim)

but being afraid.

Admiring Norway and France only in photographs,

your friends telling you to go, and visit,

it's nice, they say,

but you just shake your head

and say

“I'm Jewish”

They nod, sadly

hearing the unspoken words

I'm not wanted.

It wouldn't be safe.

Diaspora is being attached to your homeland,

and separate all at once,

being blamed for the actions

of people you've never met

in a place you've never been.

Diaspora is a book,

or a story,

that hits close to home,

and your friends read it

and say

“I don't get it”

It's painful, to read,

poison goes where poison's welcome,

and you know it's true,

it's written in your bones.

Diaspora is an English class,

with only one other girl

who liked that story,

and goyim, made uncomfortable,

spending all the time talking.

Diaspora is to be uncomfortable all the time

for it to be a default state of being:

alone, without community,

sometimes lost.

Assimilated

that's an even uglier word.

It means you're made uncomfortable,

when things aren't about you,

because that's rare,

and you don't like it.

Did this discomfort you, goy?

Good.