Contributors * more photos to appear soon

Contributors * more photos to appear soon
Christy Namee Eriksen, kim thompson, Jon Schill

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Banana, Split (draft)

NOTE: Personally, I get way more pissed off about ignorant people of color who ought to know better not knowing better and, in doing so, making us all look bad. This is especially true with other adoptees who "consider themselves white." Shut up; you are not white. Stop embarrassing yourself and everyone else by rejecting who you are. Most of the time, I just feel sorry for people but there's this one person I know who just pisses me off because of 1. how misinformed she is and 2. how loud she is about it.


I should also mention that I am not claiming to be any kind of authority on self-discovery or identity issues but I feel we can all agree that there is something very wrong when a Korean adoptee dresses up like a Japanese school girl at a party and doesn't understand why none of the other Asian people want to talk to her.


This is still a draft.




She knows all the words to Weezer,

was Go-Go Yubari for Halloween

and, in her tiny-mind, her chipmunk cheeks are the

the hottest you’ve ever seen

dressing like a school girl-dragon lady-

ex-Asian hyping the exotic East

Hangul hurts her hands

so she settles for (what she’s pretty sure is) kanji

Reclaims her hanguk saram handle

But a piece of shit by any other name

still stinks like she’s rotting from the inside out--

diseased with something awful, incurable

no matter how many yellow fevered topicals

coat that vapid pout.

Hitchhiking--no, sidestepping--toward self discovery

or reclamation for popularity--

she breaks a sweat, remains half a world away--

darling, you’ve got to go down the road,

not cross the street

and, remember, before you vomit

your drunken broken hangul greeting at a party

that solidarity doesn’t mean

I want to stand next to you.

I’ve seen Japanophile white girls less offensive than she is--

all alternating between being full of shit and white-boy penis

cleavage over-represented like adopted names in suicide rates

bottom-feeding, sub-human, race-traitor, wannabe,

I don’t care about how hard you had it,

Mom not listening or Dad’s whore-habit--

Unable to speak--no, unable to be,

all her heart’s sob stories about hidden bloodlines

language lost, and guilty conscience

all turn into pathetic cries for sympathy.

The day can’t come soon enough

when she opens up a vein or two,

lets her complaints pool beneath her

and still can’t tell

if our blood runs the same color.





my people

* note this is just a first draft and its saturday here in seoul but im posting this for my thursday poem... ive not been writing these past weeks cuz words are stirring in me... this is only a draft its not complete...

- kim



my people

im your people

who exactly are MY people?



the ones with tans who know that theres a dolphin you can eat

and sand crabs you can catch in paper cups

and that worth avenue used to be the place for drugs?

who know that cobbler goes with breakfast

and the grits demand a pool of butter?

who remember polyster blues

and yellow carded tallies?



the ones who know that svyturys is the best

and that the real reason that 1492 matters is cuz its when

stiegl was first produced?

the ones who know the weight of a quid in their hand?

the ones who know a jordie from a manky?



my people?

im your people?

who exactly are my people?



the ones who love their PBR and premo

who call a casserole a hot dish

who are wedge organic?

who sit on stoops

and know what -50 F windchill feels like?



the ones who express through words

through body language gestures

who know the warmth of the light

shining from above

filling your very soul and being

as you do the thing you were born to do?

who understand when i say

"i miss the light"



my people?



you mean the south?

you mean the midwest?

you mean all the crevices of europe?

you mean the bus riders in merida?



my people?



you mean the ones who raised me?

the ones i do love?

the ones in oregon with the most beautiful garden in the world?



my people?

im one of you?



you mean the ones who flaunt rainbows like a flood just ended?

you mean the ones who cry out for equality?



im of of your people?

my people?

who exactly are my people?



the ones who live here

who look like ones from my other life?

the ones who fail to see that

theyre descended of the ones who created that line of divide between a people?

the ones who think they know

just because its been years?

but still walk with a swagger like this is theirs?

but we speak the same

and dress the same

and they brag of their prowress

telling me my people do not sweat

as my shirt is drenched in summer's humid heat



or you mean

my people

like



the ones i see each day

whom i cannot speak to

beyond head nods and

nervous mispronunciations

and confident askings for "mul' and "hana soju ju saeyo"



the ones who turned their backs on our mothers?

who push us to learn faster than we can?

who turn us into high ratings tv shows

and tell us how we're bitter



the ones whose acceptance of me

changes me

makes me better

makes me stronger?



my body is of this place

my blood is of this place

my entire dna was split in 45 degrees parallel

when my people sent me to those who say im their people now





my people?



im your people?



im one of you?



im yours?



we're the same?



only people that i can truly claim

are 200.000 others

some lost

some found

some somewhere inbetween trying to still find their people



kim thompson. 16.56 21 aug 2010 seoul, s.korea

www.thursdaypoems.blogspot.com