How did my father survive the streets of LA
a young dark skinned man
a mixed blood being in his prime

I flash back to the time he shouted at me while teaching how to drive
a  simple thing like me hanging  a small dream catcher from the rearview mirror
was enough

“They can stop you for any **** reason, Pita” he’d say.

what I didn’t know was that he was right
and what he did not account for was that I would not be seen as a dark skinned male the day I got pulled over in Davis, Ca by a cop and I stepped out of the car and walked straight up to him and he walked to meet me and asked me “Ma’am have you ever been pulled over ?” I replied “ no, this is my first time” and he smiled as if he’d popped my cherry. “I figured a small and smiling girl didn’t get of the car with the intention to start a fight” that is what my father did not understand
and I wish I could say I understood at that moment
and I wish that officer would of understood too that the only reason he did not pull a weapon on me was simply based on what I looked like