My hair is black and yours is yellow
But they never call it that;
Blonde, or like spun gold
Stunning, precious, unattainable.
But you have it,
Like I’ll never have you.
My hair is black but my skin
Is yellow
They call it that
“Slant-eyed”, “foreign”, “unnatural”
At eighteen, I broke black locks with bleach
(I’ve always wanted to be blonde)
And it didn’t look natural at all
I will never be blonde, I will always be
Yellow.
They ask: What are you?
“American, like you”
But they roll their eyes
They tell me to forget my native language
And I don’t know how to tell them I already am
Black and yellow
I think of me then think of bees, and recall
Being stung in the first grade, and how
Ever since, I’m paralyzed at the thought
Of black, and yellow
Black and yellow
Save the bees! on shirts and posters
But no one is saving me.

My dearest love why did you run from me, when my heart only raced for you.

©

We have many ideas,
but we do not seem to have idealists anymore.

We have droves of problem solvers,
but we do not seem to have solutions anymore.

We have endless media discourse,
but we do not seem to have dialogue anymore.

We have unrestrained capitalism,
but we do not seem to have money anymore.

We have innumerable drugs,
but we do not seem to have treatment anymore.

We have scores of Baby Boomers,
but we do not seem to have elders anymore.

We have unlimited vacation days,
but we do not seem to have days off anymore.

We have incalculable amounts of information,
but we do not seem to have facts anymore.

We have regular, established elections,
but we do not seem to have elected officials anymore.

We have America,
but we do not seem to have a nation anymore

We got the same heart
Beating the same blood
Into the same veins.

We got the same dreams
The same goals
And the same feelings.

We got the same anger
And the same sadness
All from the same fear.

What’s the difference
Between you and me?
Color of skin?
Sexuality?
What does that mean to you?
It means absolutely nothing to me.

Austin and I
Move at different speeds.

The fatal race of life we each compete
at a pace unique to ourselves.
I find myself disoriented all the time,
exiting delirium, now on a regular basis...
Each time
requiring
A reorientation
Without which myself is lost.
When each reorientation
Is less accurate than before,
it all becomes inevitablly  lost.

That initial destination I may never know.

Through the haze In my mind
Waves Austin
And in a heartbreaking protest.
Waits Austin.
in a Tribute to nostalgia-
it's Austin-
And in an intersectionally unique pain  we are connected. There, he stays.
And as I slowly, But surely,
Continue my own race-
I glance back, constantly, and his hand still waves me on-
the gift of direction..
.
Now as I lay here
Before I can rise
I force myself to record it
for a better me;
that

Austin and I-
Move at different speeds.

The only thing I want
The only thing I want is for all the tears to stop
The only thing I want is for everyone to smile
The only thing I want is for people to love each other
No matter race
No matter gender
No matter size
Because at the end of the day we are all born and we all die
Might as well make life the best of it

Our creation was our benefit
Now it will be our downfall
Because we didn't end it

“To us, white girls are exotic,”
says my Arab American boyfriend.
At that moment, my brain ceases
to make sense of those words
in that order.
Exotic? White? Girl?
Me? Me. He means... me.
So this is what I say
to my Arab American boyfriend
who has
more culture in his pinky
than all of white America combined.
From what I can tell,
to be white in America is
boring static,
AM radio on a Sunday morning
with a broken dial
on a back road in the boonies.
It is the culture born by everything borrowed but wrongfully claimed
as its own invention.
To be white, in America, tastes like
cream of wheat
with no hope of brown sugar.
It is a tumbleweed-kind-of-rootless
and just as desert dry.
It is colorless, odorless, tasteless—
and will choke you slowly
if you don’t build up a tolerance.
But
if you’re lucky enough
to be white in America,
for about a hundred bucks
and a swab of the cheek,
the Internet can tell you
where you came from.
Even if that makes you feel cultured,
tomorrow you will wake up
and still be
white in America.
To be white in America, I thought,
was as far from exotic
as the self-loathing, middle aged guy
behind the counter
at your local DMV.
But white girls, he says, are exotic.
Perhaps it’s because pumpkin spice
oozes from my pasty pores,
or that “there ain’t no laws
when you’re drinkin’ the Claws.”
Maybe he couldn’t resist the fact
that the Starbucks barista
knows my order
better than my name,
or that my hair blowdries pin straight—
no matter the time of year.
I wonder if it’s the combo of
black leggings, messy buns,
and work out tanks—
or the fact that I think I’m saving the whole ******* sea turtle population
with my stainless steel straw.
Exotic?
Maybe it’s my compulsive nature
to buy in bulk, to pet every dog I see,
and to cry over Queer Eye episodes.
It couldn’t possibly be
the steady diet of rom coms,
my collection of Birkenstocks,
or the apple cinnamon candle
burning on my windowsill
that reminds me of “fall y’all,”
but then again, who knows?
To me, my whiteness is a privilege
that will forever be misinterpreted
as entitlement by every person
who checks that “white” box
on the form
without checking themselves too.

“To us, white girls are exotic,” he says.

White girl is just happy
he likes her in spite of it.