“What are you?” They ask.

Your worst nightmare.

An alien.

A mermaid that got her legs.

A wild thing.

“What do you mean?”

You know, your skin isn’t pale white and your eyes are dark brown instead of blue, you look ethnic somehow but I’m too dumb to ask in an inoffensive way.

But they say, “you know, like where are you from?”

Chicago.

The city, not the suburb.

A small working class neighborhood, that you need to be real Chicago to know exists.

I come from streets gritty enough to scare your suburban sensibilities.

A city as beautiful as it is corrupt.

Shining gem on the edge of a Great Lake.

A city as bloody as it is welcoming.

Full of food so good, gluttony doesn’t even seem a sin. It seems the only option.

A city of broad shoulders built on the backs of the immigrants that settled here.

That’s where I’m from.

But that’s not what you mean.

You want to know why my skin is this color, my eyes this shape.

You want to know why I’m different from you.

“I’m from here.”

It’s not enough. Your face is confused.

But it’s the only answer you’ll get.

Because it is not a question of what I am, but who.

And you can’t handle that.