There’s a coin pouch in my room, chocolate

brown with gold thread curling through.

I won it in a contest — my one true accolade

from elementary school. I had other awards

participation trophies, medals, ribbons

but the coin pouch was the only thing

I’ve truly won.

I was not a winner back then.

I was quiet — “stone-faced” — my teacher said.

Not even the class clown made me laugh.

I’m not smiling in my yearbook photo

my lips are barely curled to avoid frowning.

I wasn’t quiet the day I won the coin pouch.

To preview the middle school’s foreign languages,

my fifth-grade class competed to see

who could count in Mandarin the fastest.

I was paired up with the girl next to me — June.

Our voices were quiet, but our counting

rapid-fire — “Yī-èr-sān-sì-wǔ-liù-qī-bā-jiǔ-shí,”

until it became muscle memory, a string of sounds.

We were on a roll — all the way to the final round, but

the girls we were up against — the popular girls,

who talked to the new kid, sang silly songs at recess,

spoke at our fifth-grade graduation

they were the kind of girls who won things.

Counting like lightning, but I felt like we already lost.

I saw two coin pouches extended toward us.

One chocolate brown, one lagoon blue,

matching gold silk curling through them.

I wanted the blue, but I took the brown.

It didn’t matter — I had finally, truly, won something.

I flip through my yearbook from time to time,

remembering all the new things

I know now about my former classmates.

One realization stands out above all

none of them looked like me. I counted

one fully East Asian classmate, and

two other Wasians — one was June.

The realization was like a gear shift

moving memories from drive to reverse.

The silly, made-up song the popular girls sang

involved pulling their eyes back

to sing about the “Chinese and Japanese.”

The popular girls chosen to speak at graduation because,

as my teacher said, “people like blondes and redheads.”

Why didn’t I smile in my yearbook?

I didn’t like how small my eyes got.

The counting contest, which ended as soon as

two Wasian girls stepped up against

a blonde and a redhead. The coin pouch,

the one thing I had won, now a consolation prize.

An entrance fee, paid by the isolation

behind my unsmiling 12-year-old eyes,

the memories that turned me “stone-faced.”

But brown is better suited to my grown-up tastes.

Not lagoon blue, a splash of excitement,

an in-the-moment pleasure of winning,

but a rich, chocolate brown. A hint of bitterness

that turns into sweet satisfaction. I have made it out,

forgotten the melody of their song,

learned to smile without reservation.

A prize I have won all by myself.