Take a look at me.

Wonder how I got here.

No, really- wonder,
don't assume,
because maybe that's humanity's
biggest problem.
Everybody thinks they're smart enough
to tell the story just by looking at its cover.

I am white. I am so white it's painful,
so pale I know the frustration
of never having found a foundation
in my color,
of having to settle,
of being too much of an inconvenience
to make a shade for.
But there is privilege in this;
there is no denying that,
none whatsoever,
and please know:  I am not denying anything.  
I can't.  It is true.
My privilege is skin deep,
bone deep,
inescapable and ever evident,
but it did not get me here today.
Not entirely.

Because no matter how white I am,
my soul has never fit in.
It must be a motley of colors.
I am so white,
yet I'm not white enough-
eating alone and wearing the wrong clothes,
unable to read music
because we couldn't afford piano lessons,
and now that we have the money for birthday parties
no one will ever come.

I am ten shades less tan
than the preferred caucasian
and they will never, ever let me forget it.

I am judged the moment someone sees my family
because suddenly, the puzzle pieces must fit-
that's why she's successful,
she's a rich white girl-
except fortunate parents doesn't automatically
mean you get everything,
doesn't mean I didn't do chores,
doesn't ever mean I got paid for A's
or that college help was guaranteed.

I had to earn it.  
A's were expected, chores a duty,
allowances non-existent.
I fought for my success and only then
was I promised assistance
to get through college without drowning in bills,
yet even then
I still had six figures to consider
and weeks' worth of scholarship papers
just to make it out with anything to my name.
Privilege was present,
but privilege was not the reason
I won enough scholarships
to make it through.
I worked.
(It is possible for a white woman to work,
as much as I've heard that it isn't.)

My skin won't tell you that I've suffered,
quite the opposite.
My skin won't admit the times
that I pulled at it, hated it,
the days I wanted to make my pallor permanent
and the day gooseflesh trembled
beneath a blade.
It can't tell you about the tears
or the panic attacks
or the abandonment or depression or inexplicable grief
for joy I never knew,
belonging I never experienced,
and privilege that could not protect me from assault
or hatred,
because most of you wouldn't be listening anyway.

I promise,
there are reasons for my self-loathing.

But you won't know it,
won't even realize it exists as a subplot,
if you refuse to open my book
and learn my story
because my cover is white.

You won't realize that
I am scared to let my friends meet my family.
You won't know I've lost friends after they have.

You won't know that I care,
that I'm angry too,
so furious my teeth are cracking
but I can't say a word.
I am not supposed to.
I have been scolded for it.

Everyone says
not to judge a book by its cover,
yet they still do,
tossing novels aside every day
because their binding is displeasing.
Maybe some of the authors before me
wrote horrible stories,
but you stand to discover an unexpected favorite
if you can give others a chance.

And you stand to find a fellow motleyed soul
by opening that shiny new book you can't trust,
don't want to trust,
and testing the waters of the first delicate page.

Sunlight is filtering in.
The floorboards are broken
and the counters deaf with dust,
but somehow,
these weak rays
are highlighting the rose,
the silver,
the gold
in every loose splinter
and wandering mote.

In this sunlight,
it even looks like stars
have settled into the living room
where no one else will walk
and certainly no one will eat.

This is acceptable.

There are beautiful galaxies to breathe
and a precious serenity
in the golden silence.

pick up the pencil.

my mother told me
to make something,
but I didn't have the strength.
I didn't have the courage
to tell her that the pencils are suddenly
far
too
heavy-

"you have to start making art again."

mother, I've tried.
I've tried too many times to count.
I have spread out my pencils
and arranged my pallet
and taken inspiration till the pieces
blend, lose shape,
but everything has lost its color.

blues are so gray.
red is even grayer.
yellow is a sickly highlight,
and I can barely stomach
the near black shade of old purple.

and when I look up,
I remember that my world
has gone gray, too,
and I had forgotten
till now,
pencil shaking, paintbrush askew
between weak fingers.

why bother?
it's all the same color
anyway.

so I let the pencil drop.

Artemis is my godmother, but she might as well have made me herself.
not with anyone else; just her womb of stars and moonlight, and a love of open air and indigo sky.  chase the horizon until it becomes a little less distant, and suddenly you just are.  she taught me that.  she taught me a lot of things.

whisper to the wind and talk to the trees; they'll listen.  maybe, if you satisfy them, they might sigh back a response.  notch your bow of silver bark and quilled arrows with the breeze in their feathers, and teach the deaf what they told you.  she does it so often that it's instinct for her now.  (I'm still working on my marksmanship.)

she taught me to run with the wolves, too, but neither of us expected that I would settle into the pack so well.  I am cohesive; I obey the hunt.  I know how to loose the same long, lonely howl.  I know how to protect and guide and follow- mostly, anyway.  the trouble is, I stray in my heart.  I long for more than long nights and stray breaths between sisters.  

I long for someone who will hold me, and that is the one thing my godmother cannot teach me.  she does not know how to catch a man's heart with her glittering arrows, and she has sworn off the folly of trying.

I'm a little more foolish though.  

she holds me close in my despair, and we are so alike that sometimes it becomes impossible to tell the two of us apart.  but it always comes back, the stubborn truth:  I can never join the hunt.

because my father's song is guiding my wanderer's heart, and I was born to chase.  I just can't chase with Artemis.

I love too deeply to give love up.

Mulan sang about not knowing her reflection.
well, the trouble is, I know mine,
it's just that I don't like her at all-
the way her big eyes are like a child's,
stuck in a woman's long face
and a crone's deep blue bags
and a ghost's pale freckles.

I used to think she was pretty,
but most of the time now I just glare a little
and I ask her where the time went,
even though I can see **** well
all the minutes pined away in the shadows
of her cheekbones,
the ones people used to call beautiful,
the ones that they now silently observe and think,
just a little too deep, a little too empty,
and they're right.

God, they're right.

Because she's spent too much time staring in that mirror,
trying to will herself to believe that she is beautiful,
she is worth it,
she is better than what other people think,
and she's been lying all this time.
The pair of us, we've never liked liars,
but I'm staring her in the face
and I'm deciding to tell the truth.
Girl, you've spent years in this misery
and you have nothing to be sad about.

Maybe it's all those **** tears you won't shed.
It's because you know you're uglier when you cry,
when your eyes swell up
and you suddenly have lids that rival your bags,
and your skin is no longer so pale
but for the huge red patches all over
like swollen blood flames.
If it's one thing you're more afraid of than anything,
it's that Daddy lied when he said you were pretty,
and you were a fool for believing.

You were a fool.

Are a fool.

Those swollen, patchy cheeks might pass for motley,
might as well,
so why don't you cry for once
and accept that he doesn't love you,
that you're maybe not going to do great things,
that you probably won't live up to your own expectations
and certainly not your family's,
and maybe you're not as wanted as everyone promises,
and yes, you're maybe even a bit unattractive
but for God's sake
it's even worse to try and convince yourself
that none of it's true.

Sweetheart, it's true.

I'll cry with you.

september

you sang me a song
and your voice trembled,
and there were ashes in your pockets
and stones on your shoulders,
but you picked my favorite songs
and filled the entirety of my car and my heart.
of course I said yes.
how could I not say yes?

october

you told me in the parking lot
and the pouring rain
that you loved me.
you smiled so wide that
I thought your cheeks might crack,
but they didn't, they shone,
they claimed the sun's place
in the midst of that storm.
and I whispered it back,
not because I was ashamed,
but because no one had ever said those words
and meant them before.

november

you took my hand and laced my fingers
with yours.
you were the first person
that I let walk me through the hallway,
through the city,
through life,
and the first person I ever wanted
to actually hold.

december

you taught me the meaning of grace.
you gently touched my walls and left fingerprints,
so I would know when I saw them
that I was always yours.
you wouldn't break me down,
but you would always remind me that
I was never alone
with smudges on windowpanes
and Christmas lights in your eyes.
Lord, you knew how I loved Christmas,
and I think I'd never loved it more
with you.

january

you walked me through the new year.
you told me your secrets,
and I told you mine,
hundreds of miles apart.
my heart might have broken a little,
but I learned what love meant.
I learned it meant true forgiveness.
you have forgiven me for my weaknesses,
and I have all but forgotten
what you still suffer over.
(it was not you, my love.
start anew.  the year is young.)

february

you shouted to the world
that you loved me.
I had never felt comfortable
with public declarations,
but I had to admit,
there was a beauty in your pride,
and it was hard but lovely to remember
that the beauty was me.

march

you clung to me as I faltered.
you saw just a glimpse of what I had meant
when I warned you I was broken.
you couldn't even catch the pieces of me
because I didn't let you know
they were falling.
I am so sorry.
I blamed you for my own faults,
and you, like the lamb I loved,
let me do it.

april

you still held me
even when I held you a distance away.
how could you be so strong?
I want you to forgive me.
I realize I love you,
and I put myself back together
on your charity.

may

you accepted my apologies.
you held me carefully,
as if you had finally realized how fragile I was,
but I clung to you as if I'd found salvation.
(I had.)
it took me all I had
to prove to you that I meant what I said.
your fingerprints will always be
on my windowpanes.

june

you flew a thousand miles away
and I missed you.
I woke up at night
and wondered why you were not beside me,
and you never had been,
but I realized I wished you were.
I never knew the depths of what missing meant
before you were gone,
then and now.

july

you returned, and I left this time,
but we laughed together
and shared our lives
and held each others' hands across the country.
that moment when I held you in my arms again
was when I found a piece of what I'd lost.
you took it.
I'm glad you did.

august

you and I just are.
we lay together
and I am okay with the silence.
I am okay with being close to someone,
so close I can hear your heart;
you have taught me to overcome
that first fear.
you are determined to overcome the rest.
time will tell.

september

you are my rock;
when the waves crash in,
you hold steady and keep me close.
I am so undeserving,
so fragile in comparison,
and yet you still shout your love to the world
and prove to me that you will always smudge my windows,
and I've thrown out all the wipes
because I am glad.

everyone says it is eleven months,
but I never stopped loving you,
so I count it.
make it twelve.