Chang Shih Yen: My identity is like my sanity

Mar 2023 | Found in translation

Mi identidad es como mi cordura

 

Colgando de un hilo, mi cordura.
Yo perdí los hilos de mi mente arriba en los cielos. En algún lugar.
Están allá. Escondiéndose. Adentro de una niebla espesa, detrás de las nubes, donde hace frio. Como el hielo.
Lo sé, en mi corazón, soy yellow.
Demasiado negro para ser güero.
Demasiado blanco para ser moreno.
Mi piel bonita. Soy todo amarillo.

My identity is like my sanity

 

Hanging by a thread, my sanity.
I lost the threads of my mind up in the skies. Somewhere.
They are there. Hiding. Inside a thick fog, behind the clouds, where it is cold. Like ice.
I know, in my heart, I am yellow.
Too black to be güero.
Too white to be moreno.
My beautiful skin: I am all yellow.

Mi identidad es como mi cordura

by Chang Shih Yen

Chang Shih Yen is a writer from Malaysia. She speaks English, Malay, Chinese, Spanish and Portuguese. She graduated with first class honours in English and Linguistics, and has a Master’s degree in Linguistics from the University of Otago. She is the author of Chang Shih Yen’s Pandemic Diary: Surviving Covid-19 lockdown alone and without internet, and Around The World.

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