Why you talk liddat?

In America, if I talk in white english, but when excited, codeswitch

I’m diagnosed with having a “slight accent”.

In Malaysia, if you’re Malaysian and you talk like this then you’re fake. 

But make no mistake, the gates that these gatekeepers make aren’t the only ones I can take.

They say that I have to choose one and stick to it, make my actions easier to predict 

otherwise I’m a hypocrite, “think that you’re better is it?” 

Only know how to speaking, or not from their country, or third culture Gen Z, 

one term to encapsulate how they should see me. 

Make it well rounded, implying the singular it. See they don’t like you to pick. 

And choose, based on those you talk to, but what if I do? 

What if I fell in love with with these colonial words, 

Stockholm Syndromed by these tools of oppression, 

originally meant to be used as a lesson: 

Speak the Queen’s English correctly, else people will correct me, 

But this literacy’s not hypocrisy, see I do want to be that which feels really me

But which one’s more you? Say those that don’t get to choose, 

who don’t know that “yes or no” means that I lose.

When they talk about my identity, they look at my roots not at my leaves, 

but I am person not a tree, I can hold multiplicities  

I know that there are no ill-intentions, just maybe, internally, a disconnection

I know that this instinct comes from self-protection, the need to confirm one’s own self-perception

We know who we are because of our tribes, 

but circles do not have any sides. 

We’re born in one body then grow old and die, 

and based on your faith, jump on one more ride

If I tell you that I grew up in the states, 

would that make this accent sound any less fake?

If I say that Malaysia is where I was born, 

does that help you feel any less torn? 

Do my teen years in Kedah help you draw a line, 

to explain, understand, categorize and define? 

 Do you now feel more stable, more able to know where we stand?

‘Cause I can’t. I’m still finding out who I am.

This dissonance I'm very familiar with

Growing up with a peculiar wish

Please god let me belong somewhere, 

I swear I won’t care where you put me in

So my mami, she sent me to go learn chinese, 

12 years old all the teachers ask ‘Why you like this?’

They called me banana ‘cause inside I’m white, 

but I’m sure it’s the teachers who don’t like when I’m right

Correcting their English, made them look like fools, 

they said ‘don’t forget we’re the teachers, this is school

“You’re the student, you’re fluent in English we know. 

But remember your blood is Chinese and it shows’

And so till my 20s, I believed I was halved. 

Half chinese, half white, torn between these two paths.

But I’m not half-anything, I can’t ignore, 

that two parts don’t make one, no, I am more.