If you were ever to kiss me, I think the world would stop spinning.
My stomach would jump up into my throat and suffocate me.
My heart would explode out of my chest and lay on the ground, still beating furiously.
My limbs would go stiff, and I’d be frozen to the concrete.
My lungs would collapse, but I’d still be able to breathe, because your kiss would be the only oxygen I’d need.

"you're really pretty for a black girl"
I swallow that backhanded complement hard.
I can feel the shards of glass that came with it.
"you're pretty for a black girl" feels like beauty isn't synonymous with being black.
"you're pretty for a black girl" feels like passing a test I don't remember signing up for and I should be grateful I passed without preparation.
"you're pretty for a black girl" does not mean you're pretty. that means you're pretty by exception, and not because you just are.
   and that's not a compliment.
"you're pretty for a black girl" I hear them say it for the last time.
I clench the hem of my shirt , look them straight in the eye and say without missing a beat, "No. I'm just pretty."

I never even knew I was different. And by different I mean not white.
My mom has green eyes and light skin with freckles. She has brown hair that beautifully sprouts white strands sometimes, but she's never not beautiful. Or never not has green eyes, or light skin with freckles.

I have brown skin. No freckles, and eyes that look like almonds that didn't make it into the bag, in shape and color. My skin is dry. Except my face. My skin is more than one shade of brown, especially on my face. My skin is stretched. Never been tight. My skin reminds me of a potato, not so much "cafe con leche" like my nana says.

I grew up in this white town, with white people, and white expectations. I was never allowed not to act like a child because children of color are barely seen as children. I was never allowed to run or yell like the white kids on the playground because that made me look like I hadn't been "raised right".

I could never sit on the lunch benches outside like the other kids because the yard-ladies would only see my brown skin in the sea of whiteness and only tell me to not sit there.

I could never struggle in academics because that meant my hispanic mother didn't invest in my "academic success" and CPS would show up and ask me questions about whether my mom loved me or not. My mom worked three jobs, and saw us for less than three hours a day. she worked so she could invest in our success.

I couldn't say I was hungry because that meant my family was too poor and couldn't feed me. And then have CPS show up and ask to see the fridge. [I wasn't actually hungry, it's just that  by the time I was 7 I had developed an eating disorder because I had no idea how to cope with anxiety].

I could never not listen to authority because it wasn't teenage rebellion, it would qualify me for special behavior programs targeted towards "troubled youth" and we all know that's code for "kids of color who won't make it past  without being put in jail, being *****, pregnant at least once, or dying-- and by dying I mean killed by the system... choose any system because they're all designed to **** POC anyway".

I could never play in the sun during the summer with my white latinx cousins because the sun is not a brown girl's friend. The sun made my skin dark and made my aunt's hiss about my color to my mom and how she shouldn't let us out without sunscreen because we'd turn into "negritas", and that's what we shouldn't want.

I could never love myself because that doesn't exist when you aren't white. I mean, how do you love a body with thick brown hair, cracked skin, and a nose that doesn't look like Cinderella's?  I mean, how can you love a body that doesn't look like anyone in the new J-14 magazine? I mean how do you love a body that's never seen the sun because she's scared of being too dark because then shes's ugly? I mean, how does a brown girl even love herself?

I caught my reflection today and didn't recognize myself. I knew it was me because I saw the eyes widen at the same time I felt that mine did. If I could jump out of that skin right then and there I would have done it, and left it there. Part of me is still in front of that mirror right now trying to make sense of it. Of who I saw. Of who I am.

I live in this this weird place. Not physically, but literally. Or is it metaphorically? Anyway, I live in this space where half of the time I know I exist because it hurts and the other half is present. Just present. There is nothing. There is no weight, just a feeling of being present. And that's where I'd like to stay. But there is no room for nothing because nothing is occupied by something and I think that something is me.

I think my body is not my body because I don't recognize it. I have no ties to it, I don't even think it belong to me. My body feels like an overdue book that's registered to this weird library I've never been to and I want to return it. But the problem with that is that there is no address to this library and that makes me feel like there is no library. And that makes me feel like I bought this body and I don't know why I would even do that because I would probably choose to be a butterfly instead.

I think my body is missing something. And by something I think it's missing me.

who the **** am I?
what the **** do I look like?
where the **** do I fit in?
I say as I'm mindlessly brushing my teeth.  I look at the image in the mirror and ask them, "where did you even come from?"
There is no reply, only an echo of what I think my face is.

where the **** am I going?
how the **** am I going to get there?
what the **** do I even want?
I ask the image. There is no reply, only desperation in its eyes. "Do you even want to be here right now?" I ask the imagine. No answer. But I think yes. I think the image wants to be more than that. I think it wants to be. Simply, be.

I walk back to the mirror. Exist, I tell the reflection. Just exist, I tell myself

since the first time i saw you, for you, i knew i belonged to you completely. i knew it was the beginning of the beginning for me. a new beginning for a something i didn’t even know was coming. and not for us, but for me. being with you, having you touch every corner of my mind and having every neuron fire in your name , in your direction, is what it’s like being touched by an angel. and i don’t think that anything, if anything, is worth dying for. but if kissing you every time made me feel like the ocean’s tide changes to match your heartbeat i think that might be. kissing you feels like i can taste a revolution, like if your tongue is te only thing that’ll touch me in this war. like if nothing could save me, i’d turn to you for my last sweet moment. even if you’re painfully bad for me, and everything drove me away from you, i’d crawl to your feet and surrender my tongue for the taking.