white hands are magnetically attracted to my tresses
the way they bounce when i'm running to the bus stop
how it curls from the top to the bottom.
when i tell people what i am
they nod and say,
"no wonder you have that hair."
i wake up in the morning conscious of my existence
the whiteness of my father's father is not present in my skin
but it is there in the way i talk on the phone,
"ain't" and "finna" tucked neatly into the corners of my teeth.
when my boss sees me for the first time in person,
they will part their mouth slightly and say,
"you're so unique."
the latinos at school are lighter than me
their hair is straighter than mine
and their spanish is much more polished.
when they heard my first grammar mistake
they frowned and said,
"oh great, another ******* coconut."
i will die an oxymoron, a paradox
a cultural clusterfuck who doesn't know what a border is.
i will die undefined, unknown, as a variable in a math problem
written by the hands of a white man
who thought everything could be solved
if it was done his way.