My heart aches as I tell my tale

A tale as old as America itself

How my parents came for a better life

Condemning themselves a different kind

A kind of people misunderstood

You see, we are Middle Eastern and nothing more

Black hair, dark eyes, tan skin

That's all they will see and know

The accent, the foreign words

That's all they will hear and nothing more

No one will understand but us

For the pain is real and never gone.

I'm lost, confused, still a foreigner in my own land

Wandering when the time will come

When we will be considered one of us

My name is different, unique they say

But the stares and whispers say otherwise

Some fear me, some pity me, some just don't care

Yet none of them know me as one of them

I am foreign they say, unique and all.

Some change their name, their eyes, their hair

But in your heart you are still the same

Convincing yourself is not enough

We are different, they say, not one of us

They say to leave, they say to go

Simply a blight in a perfect world

We don't belong they say

 Leave, Go home they say.

Not belonging there, not belonging here

Marked as a foreigner for eternity

I wander through life enquiring

If I am not us, and I am not them

Can I just be me, and that be enough?