Where are you from?

Where are you from?

I am a newly turned teen and am new to Peachtree City, Georgia

and any time I see someone Brown

I can’t wait to ask

Where are you from?

And when they answer somewhere a bland town in America

and I follow up No where are you from?

and when they say the state they are from

my eyebrows hug in confusion

No where are you really from?

and when they mention Pakistan India Sri Lanka Bangladesh

anywhere Brown

I smile

feel relief

I am so desperate for a connection of my experience back home

that when they have something that they can share with me

I can say

Me too

Me too

Me too.

Years later

I realize

that you aren’t supposed to ask

Where are you from?

No, where are you really from?

But you see

at that time

I asked

because I so badly wanted to see them

and me

and to have a connection

even it was the slightest whisper

or a trace

where our fingers could point to a map

and land somewhere closer together

than inches and continents

a p a r t.

illustration from my first picture book Lailah’s Lunchbox.