It kinda ***** to be hispanic.

Because apparently,
my ***** tastes like salsa.

and my calves are not strong as a result of exercise,
it’s because I’m hauling pounds of marijuana across the borders.

and I’m automatically dumb,

you know your people have been brainwashed when even they start to believe that they’re dumb.

that’s what I learned when the Mexican girl next to me in math class leaned over to me and said,

“You’re really smart for one of us.”

if a white woman has my skin color, it’s beautiful.

when my naturally tan skin is pictured, i’m now wearing “too much bronzer.”

I’m a fake.

I “don’t belong in this country.”

Because my ancestors looked up to this country as a place of refuge and stability, but I tend to disagree,

I gotta leave now?

Take a moment and live in my home. Live in my country. Know how my life works.

And then tell me oppression isn’t a thing.

There’s something vital about constants.

To have that solid foundation to grasp on to when you feel as if you’re going to fall.
To be able to fall onto something rather than plunge into the void.

But I feel as if I was built on an impulse, unplanned, more of an experiment.

I’ve written numerous
Poems for you
Each and every one
Delicately written

Pictures painted
With words bleeding
From my pen until
The paper is soaked

Yet you cast aside
The pain it is
To arrange
Those words for you

I'm pondering
If pouring
My heart out
Is worth it anymore

Well this poem
Will be torn up
Because you don’t
Deserve it

I wonder
If you ever did

I’ve never met someone
Who could breathe life into me
And take my breath away
At the same exact time
Then I met you

Our lives are just like books
Filled with numerous chapters
We may not like what’s inside
But turning the page and
Continuing the story
Is the only way to move on

I was thirteen when I made the first incision on my ****** heart, allowing its contents to pour out in a heavenly wave of confusion and innocence.
Which is fine.

I was fourteen when I tried to stitch the pericardium back together with the “I love you’s” that were never meant to be said, the heat of the activity, and the temporary “Stay Strong”s.
Which is also fine.

I was fifteen when I learned that the heart muscle can only regenerate in small, limited quantities, that it would never be quite the same in its entirety.
Which is, again, fine.

Now I am seventeen days from my sixteenth birthday, and I’m learning that time spent alone can not only let you find yourself, but can also lead you to parts of yourself you weren’t meant to discover quite yet.

But I am almost sixteen, and it’s too late. I cannot forget what I know.

Maybe seventeen will be kinder.