"BEING ME"

By Lapieh Landu*

Born into a blend of different worlds

Life was always baffling

Where one part of me went its own way

And the other a different direction

Equality seemed accessible in my home

As love knitted us together

Where our differences didn't matter

Or impeded in our normality of life

Confused was all I became

Longing to know my mother tongue

And my father's ethnicity

It brought me further into the darkness

Where I was lost and twisted

An outcast in my own country

Not physically but physiologically

Has my name any significance?

Or my 'pasin' a curse passed down by my forefathers?

With the narrow possessions imparted in me

I stand among many others who like me

Longing to find our distinctiveness; our myths

Our identity

Landu is a student at Divine Word University in Madang, PNG @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@