A Kto To?

My relationship to my language.

Kurwa. Fuck. Is what I hear when people find out Polish is my first language, then they laugh. That’s all I know what to say, they’ll inform me.

Jak się masz? How are you? Well, you tell me. It is always fun and games when people tell me they know Polish, and that they only know the most horrendous of words that I could be using as a Polish girl. 

Dobra dziewczyna. Porządna dziewczyna. Good girl. Decent girl. That’s my expectation and what I was told my entire life. Growing up a Polish girl. Being so tied to my language and culture, I am just a Polish girl. Expected to sit prim and proper, follow my parents set standards and expectations. Be the girl they want me to be.

Tradycyjna. Traditional. I get looks. The tattoos. The piercings. The mental image of someone who does not belong. I don’t look like a Polish girl, they say. This comes from the people who taught me my mother tongue. Who taught me my culture. But am I not the same anymore? I still think and speak po Polsku. 

Suka. Bitch. That’s also Russian, people say. It’s something I hear walking the streets of New York and Poland, getting catcalled.  Ignoring and walking through the dimly lit streets, alone. You can change the country, but not the man. Can you change the girl? 

Uśmiechnij się. Smile more. But do I want to? Do I need to smile at you? I am thinking to myself, walking by, ignoring. Ale nie mogę zignorować. I can no longer ignore. I don’t want to ignore it. I don’t want to respond for you. I don’t want to look pretty for you, I don’t want to be the Polish girl they want me to be. I am not running from my culture, I am running from the imposed traditions of what it means to be a girl. I don’t want to cook. I don’t want to marry. I don’t want to be yours. 

JA CHCE BYĆ SWOJĄ. I want to be my own. I am running from what they want me to be. The men, the people, everyone, but can I run from the language in which I think in? What made me, before I even knew who I was? The question is, do I need to run?

Chuj. Dick. I wish this was something I could say in response, but I am a porządna dziewczyna. I can’t speak like that. What would my parents think? My grandma? What will the man think? Would the man hurt me?

Pizda pierdolona. Fucking bitch, he says. But I am not.

Zjebać. Fuck it. But can I? Can I just say that? And go along with what I want to do? Can I break the cultural standards and stereotypes put upon my parents? Can I just do what I want? I want to. I want to live freely, to be free of the struggle and to be free of being a girl. Whatever that means. 

Spierdalaj. Fuck off. I am thinking more now, about my parents, about the man. Thinking in both English and Polish.  

Kocham ciebie. I love you, they say. Another thing that many people know, they tell me. But how can they? I am not the porządna dziewczyna they want me to be. The man? He was disappointed that I did not reply to his crude remarks, and I was not the dobra dziewczyna responding to him. He said I am an okropna suka. Horrible bitch. Does everyone feel the same? 

Ja pisze. I am writing. I want everyone to know me. I am me. A Polish girl in America. Not defined by the man, not defined by my parents, not confined to my culture. There is more than spoken word that comes to a person. Whether it be English or Polish. My languages. The ones in which I can present myself as who I am, outside of my looks. I don’t speak or look  ładnie, pięknie, i przyjemnie. And I never will, not for anyone.