Brown Bag Blues

By Isabel Dorn

I ought to start with a classic anecdote:
lifting the lid of my battered Tupperware at the kindergarten cafeteria
to release the vile smell of my mother’s homemade chicken feet
swimming in the tangy orange sauce my great-grandmother invented
before she left her village of grass huts and baked mud streets
to seek the American Dream.

I ought to tell you how my classmates wrinkled their noses in disgust,
how I begged my mother for sliced turkey on white bread
how I prayed every day on the car ride from Kumon to violin lessons
for fair skin and eyes like robin eggs.

I ought to serve you a story on a platter of cut fruit,
peeling away my tough skin with nimble thumbs,
carving myself into bite-size pieces,
discarding all my bitter parts
until all that remains is tender and digestible,
humbly waiting at your door for acceptance.

But this would be a lie,
for this is not just one more tale of a Vietnam girl
wrapped neatly in brown paper for your consumption.

My story is reeking, rotting,
tearing the seams of this flimsy bag,
invading each breath with the sour stench
of girl fermenting into woman,
of blood and bone and fat and flesh
of pits and rinds and bruised brown skin,
a horror far too heinous for your fragile Western nose.

Isabel Dorn (she/her) is a graduate student who uses poetry to examine the complexities of intersectionality and coming of age in the 21st century. As a Vietnamese American woman, she sees writing as a powerful tool for social justice and strives to create more visibility for underrepresented groups with her work.