hyphenated

What is that line? you asked me.

The little line between those words?

It’s a hyphen, I said. It connects

Two disparate, disconnected things

To make something new, something possible.

It’s in your name, I began to explain—

Desperate for you to understand that

It served as a lifeline for the parts of me

That exist in you, that were threatened

With erasure—

Even though your eyes, your lips, your nose

Are undoubtedly mine, my gift to you

Along with life and all its painful lessons

I had to learn on my own.

It’s a bridge, I long to tell you—

A bridge traversed by your Mama’s father and your Papa’s mother,

Who, respectively, respectfully, worked to bring everyone else over,

Who crossed that bridge in dancer’s shoes.

It connects where your family is from

To where you and your family were born—

Two disparate, disconnected things

That were never meant to coexist;

That came together through blood and bombs,

With signed treaties and hollow promises of opportunity;

That the world still tries to tell you and me

Should not be together,

Not in us—

We perpetual foreigners,

We gleefully oppressed.

Who should not be—

Yet.

Here we are.

What is that line? you asked me.

It’s a hyphen; it’s a bridge.

It’s a gash; it’s a scar.

It is where we exist, you and I,

In the space between two disparate, disconnected things,

In the reality of something new, something possible.