Who are you?

By Arushi Chatterjee

Who are you?

I’m faced by this question so often

I wonder why does everyone want to know the answer, what’s the obsession

Whether I have to write an Instagram bio or a college application

‘Who are you?’ is the hottest question in the nation

Who am I? I ask myself,

Well what a dumb question to ask a teenager myself replies.

I am much too young to make a decision

But my answer everyone expects will cause a sensation

My parents and friends and teachers

Each have their own unique prediction

Of what my answer will be when they pose this question.

But the truth is that after much thought and deliberation

I have still not arrived at a definite conclusion

The truth is I don’t know who I am

I just know that I’m a girl, that I’m seventeen, and that right now I’m just studying

The endless possibilities of who I can be

I can be the next best chef

Who’s killing it in the culinary artsI can see myself as the next Gordon Ramsey or Chirstina T ossi

Expertly moving in the kitchen

Preparing every dish – regardless of whether its sweet or savory

I can be the annoying feminist

Who’s obsessed with T aylor Swift

And can't shut up about equal pay

And how women should always have a say

About laws built around their bodies

The feminist who doesn’t tire of repeating herself every single day.

In an effort to cause some real change.

I can be a slam poet

One of the jobs AI perhaps can't take over

Because generating rhyming words

And using your words as a sword

T o cut through people's hearts

Are two different skill sets, that are worlds apart.

I can become a psychiatrist

Perhaps studying psychology

will teach me how to deal with my own anxieties

and it’s no secret that everyone in today’s date

is in urgent need of therapy.I can become a chess player

Have my own Queen's Gambit moment

Prove to all of my male friends

Who have tried mansplaining the game to me

That I can play it without them

From the opening till the very end

And show them that their not so helpful advice

Is nothing when faced with my perfectly timed piece sacrifice.

You know I can be all of these things and more

Chef, feminist, poet, therapist, chess player galore

But if one more time you ask me “who are you?”

I will still say I don’t know yet and that’s the truth

And you can sue me for being a confused teenager if you have nothing better to do

But don’t ask me that godforsaken question

Till I formulate an answer, till I have some sort of a clue

Till I can do justice to the five year old me who always knew

That I would end up being whoever I wanted to.