second-generation

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Sheethal Ayalasomayajula

and I know they’re watching
from fine spread ashes
laughing maybe
at how a ten-minute walk suddenly seems too much,
at how the cloudless sky rains hellfire
when to them the heat, this heat, warranted an extra layer.

and maybe they’re confused
by how much school means now,
education outweighing the choice to farm land,
and how I’ve never seen land farmed,
and only breathed it in once from a train:
rice paddies form glimmering islands under the sun.

and they might feel pity,
for my microwave curry, store-bought yogurt,
but never for me, because I have what they wanted
I have what they worked for:
I’m in the promised land
with dreams they saw on grey film screens,
bunking class to eat charred corn at the beach.

and I have the claim to citizenship,
the claim to equality, to humanity,
when I march to the corner store for salt,
when football games seep into festival season.
and I call myself the best of both.

and I hope they’re proud
not of my performance quality, but of my decision to perform
and of how I respect the heat, the humidity
when my hair puffs out like cotton
and how I pull it back into two tight braids
and lay on the stone floor just to cool down
before getting back up to work again.

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Sheethal Ayalasomayajula is a sophomore at Rutgers New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences. She is a cellular biology and neuroscience major who has always had a passion for writing and storytelling.