A stranger asked me to leave 'their' country after I have stayed in the US for many years and then only a few blocks away another soul very lovingly praised the sweet intonation of my native language that I was chatting away in. All in all, that day was very bizarre and I cannot help but feel happily saddened by the whole memory. And with that memory, I penned down this poem on the encounters of racial slurs and added a positive spin to it as hate really has no place 
"Go back to where you came from!",
He cried, turned around and fled away,
Even before that statement could sync in,
He was already on his way!
While I stood there, frozen in my footsteps,
Baffled, as to why didn't he pause to give more context!?
Like a soothsayer's end-of-the-world warning,
He obviously assumed his words didn't need any explaining!
Leaving me with many many questions
fleeting through my mind,
Like why, of all days, today,
Will anyone ask me to stay inside?
For it was a break from the usually overcast
Seattle skies,
Surely not one of the days to be lazily lost,
dozing off, with closed eyes!
'Go back to where you came from'
In my head, I reiterated,
'Whatever did it mean!' I felt so exasperated,
The time frame, at least, he should've clearly stated!
Surely, he didn't mean my apartment!
As, I started check-listing the places off, in my head,
Or maybe more precisely one of its rooms,
Kitchen, bedroom or bathroom instead!?
None of it logically made any sense
So I decided to broaden the scope instead.
Maybe he wanted to remind me,
to go back to nature,
To that beautiful lake I visited recently,
that sat atop the crater?!
"Back to the nature, back to the nature,
There only humanity will find its way"
Maybe he really was a soothsayer,
Trying to warn me of the otherwise impending doomsday?!
A good thought, what a visionary man!
My mind surmised,
But should I really discount his ruthless tone,
that reeked heavily of the negative side?!
Discontent, I pondered on,
Going deeper down the rabbit hole,
Surely somewhere things will snap in place
While, down the memory lane, I'm taking a stroll.
Maybe he meant, my country of birth,
But how could he possibly know about that,
A stranger to me - me, being a completely ordinary soul,
Why would anyone bother to keep a track of that?!
'Oh don't be so naive',
The suppressed voice in my head spoke up.
Obviously he didn't just mean "my" place of birth,
Rather the place where my ancestors took turf!
'Ancestors, Ancestors', curious thought indeed,
But again, how far back should I go?
To Aryans, Dravadians or Mangoloids,
Surely they all mixed up ages ago!
Or should I go back to ages of
Neanderthals and Denisovans!
Or the time when Sapiens established
That earth was only theirs to command?!
After exhausting the depths of my evolutionary pedigree,
Although, that's not where I earned my degree,
I thought of exploring my origins at a philosophical level
Maybe disguised in its details, I will discover the devil.
'Where do I come from?'
An existential question indeed,
Seems like I have been searching for that answer for ages,
And yet, haven't come close to any sort of victory.
Did he really know where I came from? Perhaps he did!
And if so I missed a golden opportunity to tell him,
That ever since my consciousness woke up,
From that mystic deep slumber,
I've been perpetually trying to find my way back,
It's just the how and the where that I can't seem to remember!
