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Scout on Immigrating/Look at Me

 

On painfully early mornings, I sell them conveniences. I look into their blinding eyes and wonder if they see mine. I wonder if they think my thick, wide eyebrows and almost-black eyes are beneath theirs. I wonder if they remove me from reality because of my brown skin and dark eyelids. They like food made in faraway places, but I wonder if they like faraway people, if they appreciate the ones who bring it to their door. I wonder if they appreciate that I look into their eyes without the bias that they return.

Before I leave for work, I wake up in a cold sweat. I’ve had the same dream for weeks on end. I’m walking in a desolate plain at sunset, rubble dusting up my pants and climbing into my nose. I wish that I were home, until I remember that the rocks under me are the remnants of where I grew up, and I must reach the end of what used to be a road to get flour. I hear missiles spinning down from not too far away, and even though I may be safe, I run anyway. I run because it is all I can do, because running in this place that was once my neighborhood is the only thing that is the same. Today, I run alone, but I once ran with my sister, ran with my friends, ran when there was nothing to run from. As the crowds of people waiting come into sight, I feel a stray bullet reach me. Except it wasn’t stray, and I am the only stray thing, running to get food on my own land, and I realize that the bullet was always for me. It was created for me, loaded for me, ready to reach me in the same place where I had created my first memory. I was born to be caught by it as the sun ran with me, born to be accused, born to run.

I sit up, listening to the soft hum of the air conditioner. Suddenly, I am grateful that I am here, grateful to be warm and safe. Somehow grateful that I live in a country that would let me die, help me be killed, if I were somewhere else. I have reached another day of looking into their eyes, asking them with my gaze if they are different, if they would let me be murdered if I happened to be farther away, if I didn’t speak their language better than they could. I know there is no comfort to offer myself, even if I did ask, even if they told me that I could be considered a person, even though they hate my religion and culture, my skin and my eyes, that maybe I deserve the application of those mighty rights in the beloved constitution, albeit to a lesser degree than they do. I’ll know deep down that they are just words, that they will keep working for the government that profiles me as a terrorist instead of a person, an immigrant instead of a citizen. I’ll know that if I were out of sight, they would fire at me, gift the bullets that belonged to me, sign them in cursive, turn a blind eye, and let me burn because I don’t look or think like them. I try not to think of this as I open plastic bags and scan drinks filled with blood that only I can see. I try not to think of this as they speak to me in stereotypical Arabic phrases and tell me of their non-vacation time in Iraq. I try not to think of this on painfully early mornings so that I can somehow find a way to do it again tomorrow.

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