Chloe Lyda
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Chloe is a fourth year studying Government, English, Global Sustainability, and Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. When she isn’t writing four page stories or multiple poems in a series, she is hiking with her friends, in meetings at Alumni Hall, or running down Grady Avenue. She loves English Breakfast tea, and the day doesn’t feel complete without listening to a few songs. “Backyard Boy” by Claire Rosinkranz is the current go-to.
*This piece talks about mental health, and some aspects of this piece may be triggering for someone recovering.
When my mom was a kid, a white boy had a crush on her. So, the KKK set a cross on fire in her aunt’s front yard. A white boy couldn’t like a brown girl. And although this piece is more about me and my experiences, my mom sets everything up. I am her carbon copy.
Act One
You love riding
with the windows down.
I hated it.
But then I rode
with them down
without you,
and I understood.
Coming back from a place you once had said
was the “scenic route.”
Now it’s really more my route than yours:
It’s hard
To not see the bad,
To not try and tune it out.
To smile and commemorate momentous occasions
On land others were brutalized on.
“Wow, Chloe sure is being dramatic right now.” Let’s face it: maybe you like Taylor Swift, but that’s probably what you’re thinking based on the title of this piece. But, hear me out. Life is hard, and the last year has been especially burdensome for everyone. Taylor Swift, out of the blue, released two albums.
2:36 AM: “Well, you figured out how to start your fireplace while I was sitting there, and one month prior I was wondering when I would ever see you again. And now, here I am, three months of being hidden later, thrown away and cut off after promises of ‘I love you’ and ‘I’m always here’ were burnt to ash.
The weatherman said we were going to get a good seven or eight inches of snow, but as I sit here and write, all we have is rain. I guess rain can set the pace better than snow, though, as it taps on the window, in beat with my fingers tapping on the keyboard, my pads connecting with the clear silicon cover I put on last August.
“You intimidate them, Chloe.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
I would love to start this pondering off with a rhetorical question, but there’s really no point, is there? Did that make you feel weird? Good.
Before anyone gets mad, the answer is a resounding NO. You simply cannot; well, at least, not if you care about someone other than yourself (I am looking at white people specifically, yeah, you). You see, the issue with separating morals from politics lies in how privileged you are.
Do you want to know what’s funny to me? There’s never really a “last” goodbye, is there?
I have trapped myself in a maze by often saying, “I can only write sad poetry.” However, it rings as true to me as the sound of silverware being tapped against a wine glass. Negative words will flow out of my brain, into my fingers, and onto my Google Doc — I just know it, before I even write.
Growing up with a fully Japanese grandmother and a half-Japanese mother, I have often seen them take hits from racists over their skin color, eye shape, face shape, and my grandmother’s accent. I have heard a cacophony of racist names thrown with precision at my family, and yes, chink thrown at me.