my poems are like
unbrown girlskin on a brown
boy
i don't want this poem
to be me
this time
i ask can color echo gender
no
can gender echo color
no
can skin echo me
only
if i let it
and shirts are my ocean
that i nightmare of drowning in
because broken boy binds breasts
to hide goulish girl's ghostly gaze
and still she stares at him in
a perfected mirror that he
wishes he could b r e a k but
breaking a mirror constitutes
bad luck
and already he carries too much
of misfortune on his shoulders
unbrown girlskin is not
this poem but it is
me because i let it be
me
when i nightmare of broken
bones
even though i am broken brown
boy my reflection is
ghoulish white girl and
no i am not transracial
because that is bullshit
pardon my french
i am sown from
mexico and ukraine
france and ireland and
england and germany and aztecs
latino boy with white girl on legal
documents
but white is my appearance and
latino is my blood
i have never been white like
i have never been girl
and finally i allow this poem to
delve into my unbrown
girlskin and become me with
fears and nightmares and invisible
scars, suicide hotline number
three on my speed dial
did you miss my skin
no
you do not miss me
that is an impossibility, to
miss someone who was
never really there in the
first place
because i am walking
dead with no heartbeat
and a vision of my future that
slowly flakes off of my skin into
fire beneath my ocean of
shirts and sports bras
pale they say
you are too pale to be
latino
girl they say
you are too girl to be
boy
monotonous they say
you are too monotonous to be
musician
my rage responds wrong i am latino and boy and
musician and you are wrong
my melancholy responds fine i do not want to
live anyway
my friends respond fuck you he is latino and boy and
musician enough for anyone
and they say it
tranny
white
she
girl
pale
and i ask how much more
do you want
from my soul and
they respond with everything
and peel away my unbrown girlskin and my
writer's block and wrong notes
and hatred until
i am human essence
you do not miss what was not
there you miss my
unbrown girlskin even though i
have my latino boysoul and isn't
that enough?
why do i need
skin?
