Eggs-ot-tick
Written by Halle Perera - August 14, 2026
The word exotic sits on the tip of my tongue.
I swallow it down with the lump it left in my chest.
Exotic festers in my oesophagus, churning my stomach.
Mimicking the huntsman I vacuumed earlier that week; who
exploded an array of webs and trillions of babies in the dusty
bag.
Exotic. Eggs-ot-tick. EXotic. Exooootic.
My brain obsesses on the word that has been
so deeply rooted into my concept of self.
For years the once innocent girl I was
had been otherised into the trembling woman I am today.
How my cumin skin and hooked nose made me different
from the pale sack of dust calling
me that dreaded word.
Exotic; defined as ‘something strikingly
unusual, fascinating or foreign.’ My s trikingly
unusua l eyes well with the ire that courses
through the veins of my tyrannised ancestors.
My ethnicity is commonly described as a
f ascinatin g mix of being both native and
f oreig n.
Exotic. Like I was some kind of kaleidoscopic
jungle bird discovered by the white man.
The same white man who told me I was too pretty to be Sri Lankan and Indigenous, when I responded to his prying question: ‘Are you Australian? You look exotic.’
Exotic— like the ripened wood apple’s bitter juices that c r e e p down my
father’s Ceylon-cinnamon hands. Sold to him by a local who speaks a
language he no longer understands.
He swallows down
estrangement
with the
pulp.
Exotic, yet somehow, I remain liminal in my parents’ ethnicities.
Exotic, but I am too fair to seem Sri
Lankan, I don’t speak fluent Sinhala
and I don’t eat curry three meals a
day.
Exotic, but I am too Sri Lankan to seem
Aboriginal, I don’t have desired full lips
and I speak more Sinhala than I do
Nyangumarta.
Although alienated, I still feel Country caress the fragile breaths
I take, as I repose underneath the weeping gumtrees.
The word that churns my stomach regurgitates and
knocks at the back of my teeth, exiting with
nothing less than an exasperated sigh.
The gum breathes with me, tickling my
salty cheeks with her crisp leaves.
I feel my wide clavicles seep into the pindan soil she is poised upon.
Her roots creak with the cries of my people that fell before her.
I sink further.
My Clove hair sweeps across her ghostly trunk; we become a chiaroscuro
painting.
With a sniffle, I flip to lie on my back.
Slowly, I trace my hands along the stick-and-poke tattoo on my bony right hip— ආදරය (ādarya). Love.
A simple tattoo etched in a desperate attempt to prove my heritage. To
prove not to an onlooker, but to myself.
‘Exotic’ escapes my quivering mouth, as my hands lie across my stomach;
rising and falling with each lungful breath. I gingerly enter the mind of the
individuals calling me the word.
Mercy washes over me as I learn they observe me covetously, not savagely.
Exotic cave paintings cry my
ancestors troubles as
I walk among them.
poignant paintings pronounce ‘Perera’
perfectly.
Exotic, I am the Sri Lankan sapphire on Diana’s
finger. A beauty admired by flocks of women. A
beauty I embody with the glimmer in my kindred
eyes.
‘Oh, your skin tone is so beautiful! So exotic!’
‘Eggs-ot-tick’ is a deeply personal articulation of my experiences growing up as a Sri Lankan and First Nations woman. Each line begins with the word ‘exotic’, deep-rooting the word into the poem as it has been deep-rooted into my sense of self. The poem follows my insecurity turning into newfound self-love through my connection to Country.
- Halle Perera