Brown Child

When I was four,

I wanted to rub off my brown skin

Paint it away

with bleach

and put drops of icy blue

in my eyes.

I wished to tear out pieces of my

thick hair

Throw them away

like pennies

into a wishing well.

Wishing.

To not be brown

Coconut oil.

Slick on my grandmother’s hands

rubbed against my scalp

as she massaged into the roots

Roots of my ancestors

and their stories

I still wished to toss my pennies into a well

and pray

to look like Snow White.

Honestly

it’s difficult to tell which is more sickening:

The fact that society made me believe

I could never like my skin tone,

or the fact that I thought this

as a four year old child.

You see

children everywhere

Are itching

to see someone that looks like them

They want to jump into the mirror

and hold hands.

***

Tiny fists

clenched with

someone else's fingers

Blue veins laced

against the tones of the same flesh

I wish

Those tiny hands

could feel

this Earth

and let their fingers

whisper over the soil

On which we

as a full

human race.

have been born together.

Is it not these winds we have all felt against

our cheeks?

Is it not the same water

we have seen fall

From the same

blue sky

we admire?

We all are made of flesh and bone

Just different

in the way we form.

Form into the beautiful

beings we are.

I want to go back to my four year old self.

Let her know she is a radiant child

Letting the glow of her brown skin

and golden soul

Carry her away

into the world.

I cry tears of jasmine petals

and watch them fall down into her hair

Breathing out wisps of incense

as I tell her of our ancestors

People before us

Murmuring hot embers

from their lips

Gazing into the stars of the cosmos

As we too

look up into the ashy clouds

remembering their souls.

My child,

look into the mirror.

You tell your story through your face.