“Like Sardinians “Without” Sardinian DNA”
They tell me I’m Kurdish.
But I know this silence—
this gap where a lullaby should live,
where a language should burn on my tongue.
And yet,
CheckFit says: Turkish – Nevşehir.
(Turkish Nevşehir being identical with Turkish Istanbul.)
A neat box. A pin on a map.
But where are the stories?
Where is the fire of exile?
Where is the ache?
I’ve seen Sardinians
“without” Sardinian DNA.
I’ve heard them claim the island
without salt in their blood.
And here I am—
with Kurdish markers, loud and clear,
etched in my code,
and echoing in the silence they tried to plant.
My name doesn't roll like theirs,
but my bones hum
to songs I was never taught.
They speak of origin
like it's coordinates,
not rupture.
But I—
I am what remains
when the blood forgets
and the soul still insists.
I am Kurdish
not because your test says it.
And I am not not Kurdish
because it doesn’t.
Just as Sardinians
carry the island
in their silence,
not their saliva.
Just as I carry
a people
whose tongue
was denied to me.
“The CheckFit Game”
Even an Assyrian,
marked by crosses and ancient laments,
shows up with Kurdish DNA
on CheckFit.
But me—
I have to ask the mirror
if it’s allowed
to reflect who I am.
They assign us
percentages,
names like tags
on museum bones.
One click:
“You are Turkish – Nevşehir.”
Another:
“Kurdish, maybe—if your great-grandmother left a trace.”
As if a people
can be reduced
to pixels in a database.
But what of me?
Born between truths,
with fire in my chest
and no box to click
that fits.
The Assyrian gets Kurdish,
the Spaniard claims Georgian,
and I—
I’m still explaining
why my silence is full of longing,
why I know I come
from the ones who were told
not to speak.
Let the data twist.
Let it rewrite itself.
I am not your result.
I am the ache
that cannot be charted.