Immigrant

By Zahide Cam

Being an immigrant means speaking another language every day. 

It is trying to be as intellectual as you are in your own language in another language. 

It is bleaching your hair and using more sunscreen.

It is eating a bunch of pizza and having a can opener! 

It is realising all the poets and authors you grew up reading don't matter anymore – because nobody knows them. 

It is realising that when you give a quote from the literature you have read at home, you have to clarify that it is a quote. 

It is believing you’re seeing the world when you're trapped in the cheapest student house. 

It is missing, missing, and missing. 

Being an immigrant is being an immigrant. 

Being an immigrant is always doing more but always feeling like you’re less.