At age ten At age fourteen At age sixteen At age eighteen At age twenty Sajani Raja is a queer, nonbinary person of color. They are currently studying sociology and music at USC with aspirations of attending medical school. Sajani’s creative work focuses on themes of queerness, race, and politics.
anamika
I hate being “smart”
(Different)
But because knowledge gushes from my pores
My peers construct a pedestal for me
And for the first time I am
<Other>
(I try to drown myself in the swimming pool–once, twice, fifty times–and my parents just think I love to swim.)
I resolve to be average
(To fit in)
It lasts three months
And then suddenly my love for learning spills from my lips
And <other> peer edits sixteen essays in three days
Those essays earn As, my geometry tests come back as Cs
And I struggle and struggle but no one climbs onto <other’s> pedestal to help me because
I am the model minority in the flesh
An emblem of unadulterated success
Superhuman
<Other>
And when I worry my peers all respond
“you’re you”
and <other> does not fail, has never failed
(the world prescribes “you’re you” as a panacea to cure my ills)
(but it’s just smoke and mirrors)
I fail
Onstage, in front of a hundred people,
M e n t a l b r e a k d o w n
But no one notices
Because I hide my tears behind
“you’re you”
(<other> would never fail her parents like that)
(in that moment of public weakness I drown)
I am diagnosed with depression
And do I even have the right to be depressed when <other> has crested every mountain?
The pedestal is a throne now, a display case for <other>
An inspiration, a role model, a queen
A facsimile of the self underneath
In my effort to maintain <other> I neglect myself
And become the model for what a young Indian woman should be:
QuietDocileFeminineSexy
(but not too sexy, can’t outdo the white woman)
Smart
(but not too smart, can’t threaten the white man)
I am drowning and my peers toss me the words
“you’re you”
as if they are a buoy
as if those words mean anything at all
(<other’s> accomplishments feel like shards of a broken vase, lying uselessly at my feet, but never mine)
I fish myself out of the ocean
And as I dry my hair it falls off around me and suddenly I realize
I am not “her”
And I am no longer afraid to take up too much space
I assert myself and the weight of the revelation crushes <other’s> throne
And I struggle to reconcile the me people know with the me I am:
(nonbinarypocacearointellectuallycuriousoutspoken)
(imperfect)
tired of being <other>About the Author
