nobody is brown like me
No one knows what ashy means,
Or knows what to call it when I crawl across the carpet
And come up with
Grey knees.
No one knows my hair is really brown, like my mother told me,
Not Black, like what they think they see.
No one knows why my hair is twisted up into plats,
Or the time it takes to get that way,
The way it is weaved and spun and tamed by my mother’s
Seemingly tireless fingers.
No one goes home and gets their hair greased up and down
And sideways and backways with blue goop—magic, I guess
Is what it is.
No one smells like cocoa butter on their way to school.
No one feels like there’s a secret everyone else know,
But I don’t, because I’m brown.
No one feels set apart,
A stranger in her own life
Her own school
Her own community
Because no one else is brown
Like me.
