My Skin

The color of my skin.
The color of the surface of my skin.
Is not as white as yours.
The color of the surface of my skin
tinted like windows,
mocking the sun,
creating artificial nightfall creeping across my skin.

My skin,
superficially dirty.
The more you stare at my velvet skin
the more you grow in desire to wash my skin.
To scrub
and scrape the filth off of my skin.
You mock me,
you mock me and taunt me.
Because my skin is not as lovely.
Not as lovely, as the ivory porcelain stretched across your body,
like a marble statue staring down at me.

You dread.
You dread because you want to rid yourself of the ancestral bond you so desperately want to leave behind.
The one I take in with so much pride.
My pride in my skin.
My skin,
like the sun couldn't stop kissing my skin.
My skin,
like a chocolate bar broken open to reveal luscious caramel.
My skin,
the color of brown sugar and I'm sure taste just as sweet.
My skin
Your skin the one you take so much shame in.

His skin
Her skin
Not like our skin.
But still I could never find myself to be ashamed
of my beautiful cinnamon brown skin.