Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
this is who I am. This is my story.
It is only coincidence that I sing it
to you,
but sing, nonetheless, I do. One morning
amidst the restlessness of my top-bunk sheets
I heard a whispering and thought it might be God it was
me. My unconsciousness begging me
for nourishment, silently loudly attacking
my awareness with questions: it asked why
I neglect it. Pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek,
is this, too, why your body vibrates
when your thoughts are feelings? Because you too
have recognized feeling as thought? That that
faculty of wonder you hush about as if a
***** secret of forgotten childhood memory
is something that is as real as
the metaphysical pores of a skin you cannot touch,
but know is not some foreign, distant, effacing
thing, but is thick, is thick, thick as words
creaking like old wood in a library filled
with students who read so much ******* to get into
college but never venture forth for such skin
in the skin of those unconscious voices in the
shelves? Selves: we call them books but they breathe.
The ideas wriggle in your veins like
a worm. They block your blood yet move
your soul. The stillness of your speechlessness
is some movement in itself. So I suspect of you,
pale-skinned girl from Indiana,
with freckles,
yes, freckles, on your cheek.
                                                So I suspect of myself.

I do not understand how else I could have been born
without eyes which we call eyes. I cannot see
why else.
                I cannot.
                                 You cannot.

There is light over there in that darkness.
               A glimpse of it- a sliver of silver
has shocked you into your paleness. Into my
blackness. It is the same difference. A different
same.
            
Line break:

A mirror tells me things with my eyeless eyes.
My brownness ***** me into journeys with
tunnels so deep that we call them pupils.
In the distance that I gaze into I find
myself gazing into a distance I gaze into. Fathom
it. Do not. Will not will it will it will not
willed. Touching it will wilt it without touching:
this is the soul you said does not exist.
              
             It is not there. It is.

In Indiana.

Where's that? asks my blood.

In Indiana.

Over there? my finger points out the window.

No. It is.

It is. Not.

Suddenly I smell something and it is myself.
It is not Indiana or freckles or pale-skin.
I ask you where it is.
Suddenly you smell something and it is yourself.
It is not Gaborone or curly-haired or black.
You ask me where I think it is.

What the **** do we know?

I find that
Freckles seem to make the strangest shapes.

I find that I lose myself
With the connect the dots game
On your face.
I count three on your neck
Below your soft forest of hair.
A pointed constellation.
I imagine inside the freckle triangle,
It says: kiss here.
And kiss you I do.

I find that
Your freckles tell me where to travel with my lips.
I am going down down down
And now there's goosebumps.
Ah, the land is not fallow yet.
Further and further.
One dot, two dots, small dots, big dots.

I find that
My mouth is growing warm with
The taste of your pastures
Enveloping it.
I am hungry.

I find that
The land further down is bare.
A desert.
No more freckles to follow.
I look up for the first time,
And there you are,
Gasping for air.

My turn.

a small teaspoon
of sweet brown sugar
sprinkled on her nose

her brown hair cascaded
down her back
her dark blue eyes gleamed
in generosity and beauty.

they grew,
beginning to splotch
everywhere upon her face.
some called her ugly,
despite her vibrant eyes
her long wavy hair,
others,
her mum, to be specific,
said she was amazing
and looked fantastic
and who wouldn’t want
‘beautiful’ freckles?

the insults didn’t stop,
they flew
at the girl with freckles
like peter pan
charging through the air
at top speeds.

as the girl with freckles
grew up,
she and they started to
accept the fact that
the shining sun created
gifted,
granted
her with
brown-sugar
freckles.

Being a woman is hard.
Actually,
Being a woman
You expect me to be
Is hard.
Being who I am,
Well now,
That's really easy.

So society tells me
I should be thin
Maybe look like 'em supermodels
I guess since
That's not happening
I'll go drown my "sorrows"
In a box of ice cream.

Be beautiful
By putting all that mush on my face?
Sorry, no thank you
I'll pass.
I'll be me with all my spots, marks
Freckles and all.

Because you see,
What I am,
Well the genes,
Were handed to me,
By the two most beautiful people
In the world,
Yes, freckles and all.

I am independent
I am smart
I dont need to look like a clown
To please your senses.
I'm much more than
What's on the surface.
So if you wanna like me
Its a package deal,
Freckles and all.

If freckles were lovely, and day was night,
And measles were nice and a lie warn’t a lie,
Life would be delight,—
But things couldn’t go right
For in such a sad plight
I wouldn’t be I.

If earth was heaven and now was hence,
And past was present, and false was true,
There might be some sense
But I’d be in suspense
For on such a pretense
You wouldn’t be you.

If fear was plucky, and globes were square,
And dirt was cleanly and tears were glee
Things would seem fair,—
Yet they’d all despair,
For if here was there
We wouldn’t be we.

The freckles on your face blend your skin in a blanket of unique criteria