The conflicting identities make patchwork of my insides
I decided to braid my hair
say, I’m getting closer to my roots
or
my roots are too silky to hold these braids in.
I learn French and Arabic searching for a word in another language that feels
more like belonging,
But a marginalized colonizer is what my whiteness makes me
My mixed race does nothing but betray other people.
Generations from now my children’s children and their children will look at my
picture and say
their blackness came from me
or
their whiteness came from me.
I am nothing but a reason for somebody’s abnormal genealogy.
You’d think I’d be used to that by now.
21