Learning My True Color

I was a silhouette glued to your heels, convinced you were my proper owner. You said the world would turn away if I dared to step out of your outline. So I played the mirror, mimicking your stride, your laugh, your life. I tried to run, to sprint into the dark, but my feet forgot how to move without yours. I was a blank space defining you. Then, a sudden tear in the fabric. A stretch of time where you vanished, and the world didn't end—it opened. I tasted a sky unfiltered by your judgment. I liked things simply because they felt good, and no one shouted, and no one hated me. A voice rattled in my throat, brand new, unsteady but entirely my own. When the string yanked me back, I looked at you and felt the burn of resentment. Because in the quiet, I had looked down and realized I was never actually black. I was glowing. A bright, warm, pastel yellow. People looked at me and smiled at the color. They loved the shape of my genuine self. So I reached back, found the phantom cord tethering my chest to your ankles, and I cut it clean. I stepped out of the background. I became my own human.