A very personal poem by Iskender Dirik ⎯⎯ I was born with two hearts. Raised between cultures, they beat out of sync for years. This Poem is what happened when they finally didn’t.
I prepared one version spoken by me and I had endless fun creating another version as a musical interpretation with AI:
I wrote this poem for three reasons.
For myself.
Writing it helped me process my own “two hearts” story – growing up between cultures, expectations, languages, codes. In a personally difficult season, putting these experiences into words gave me clarity and strength. It turned confusion into narrative. It helped me feel more at peace with who I am.
For people with a similar background – and for the 2hearts community.
Many of us carry the same invisible split. We switch languages, behaviors, and identities without anyone noticing the cost. I wanted to articulate what so many feel but struggle to say. And to offer a different frame: multiple hearts are not a burden. They are capacity. They are range. They are depth.
“I wanted to tell you how much your poem stayed with me. It was authentic, human and real – something we need more than ever. Thank you for putting words to what so many of us carry quietly.” – 2hearts attendee
For those without a migration background.
Empathy grows through perspective. I want leaders, colleagues, friends to understand what might be happening beneath the surface. At a business dinner, one person focuses on strategy. The other might be running silent calculations about etiquette, belonging, pronunciation, status, survival. These invisible algorithms shape behavior, confidence, and performance.
This poem is an attempt to make the invisible visible. Not to divide worlds – but to translate them.
I was born with two hearts. Doctors never found it in scans. But every time I entered a room, both started beating, breaking, out of sync.
In business, my name was a puzzle. Colleagues twisted it into shapes I didn’t recognize. “Iskender” became “Dirk.” Sometimes a joke, sometimes a kebab, rarely my mother’s voice. It took me four decades to pronounce my own name the way she did.