I know what I have with you is real because I used to hate looking in the mirror and now it's all I ever do.  I'm always taking pictures and sending them to you without even second glancing them. I used to hate the way my stomach folded over my underwear, but now I'm always laying naked with you. I know what we have is real because I see potential in myself I never thought I could obtain.  And for the first time, my dreams are higher than my insecurities.  I know what we have is real because the pain I used to inflict on myself seems like such an obscure way to handle things, but at the time it seemed completely rational.  Now I realize how scary that is.  I know what we have is real because every time I look at you I forget every bad thing that's ever happened to me.  I forget about the time my mother took back the man who gave me a concussion.  I forget about the time whats-his-name threw me into a locker for going to see a movie with my girl friends.  I forget about the time that one guy tried to have *** with me when I was 13 and he was a senior.  I forget about how he put my hand around his **** because I refused to give him a *******.  I forget how I begged him to let me call my mom, even though I knew I'd face consequences for sneaking out with my girl friend so she could see her boyfriend. I know what I have with you is real because for the past 4 years I've thrown up 90% of my meals.  I haven't thrown up in months because I love the skin I'm in.       I know what we have together is real because I used to never think dying was a big deal.  I thought, "well, why is it a big deal? I'll be dead, there's no way I could be sad about dying."  Now, I take precautions to stay alive.  Now, I don't want to die.  I want to be alive.  I don't think bucket lists are silly anymore.  I don't think it's okay to be at random parks alone at 3 AM drugged out of my mind.  I don't think, "whatever happens to me happens."  I know what we have together is real because the second I met you was the second I regained my innocence.  The day we met was the day I began to fall back in love with myself and see who I am through your eyes, which is oh so differently than my fallacious vision.

As much as you try to reassure

my mind keeps reeling

With thoughts, sometimes obscure

*One can not always help

feeling insecure

They stand tall and smile beautifully,
any gaps between their teeth is held together by
glue called fear of what could happen if they are
anything but perfect. This glue, it is strong and sticky
and unbelievable expensive, it costs both your pride
and your happiness
[but it's okay, because both would've been taken
anyway. This is America you are a girl and you are a
shade of black so dark it blends within the moonlight.
the skinny twig girl in your class will call you a slave and
you will bite back the salty and sour response threatening
to spill from the back of your throat, that she is the color
of cafe con leche left on the porch and dried too long from
the burning sun of the Caribbean sky; and when she and her
white-washed friends laugh you bitterly think, wow there's no
difference between her and every other ****** here.]
They are gorgeous. Lips so red they remind you of blood at
a nurse's office. Stomachs so toned you want to scream that
your color is not a trend, that your milky white and yet charcoal
black skin with small bumps easily mistaken for traffic signs
with how easily their colors change is not a beauty status. your
skin is not pretty. It speaks an oppressed language with eons
of history behind it like your great grandmother's blood that was
shed onto the white man's land after he conquered something so
precious it could never be given back and you carry that with you,
within the stitches of glass cuts you forcefully made onto your
black skin, sickeningly thinking that you weren't good
enough because you aren't them and inside the skeleton
of your body is your grandmother
and she was a warrior in her own right and you carry her within you
and inside it not something middle school girls can laugh at.
it not something bitter old white politicians can mockingly ridicule
and sarcastically apologize for. it is not something that a boy,
years later at a frat party can try and belittle,
as if saying you are pretty for a black girl makes you feel better.
your great grandmother's soul and the woman before her give you
that milky white and charcoal black skin that can only be described
as the sky at midnight, when everyone else in the small town
you live in is asleep but you are awake and it is beautiful.
it is a hurricane with an infinite amount of water,
it is warfare at it's most addicting point and it is cataclysmic,
and they have no right to spray the dark color of the moon
onto their skin and pretend that the sun does not exist
until it is advantageous for them.
They are pretty.
They are beauty.
They are white,
and you with your Dominican kinks and sunburned skin
are not and this is something that now you do not like
but within time you will come to love.