My Skin

My skin is something I never thought about
until they thought about it for me.
"What are you?" they'd ask
as if I was a stranger in a strange land,
as if I had three hands
as if I played accordion in a hard-rock band
My skin taught me my place,
which is not to say out of place
because I still pretty much check "white" on forms asking for race
but that I was obviously a different kind of white.
It's not like this sort of thing keeps me up at night,
but it does seem to be a popular way to break the ice.
My skin started to become stranger to me
every time someone would, again,
ask me as one of their first topics of conversation
what nations my ancestors hailed from,
like I was a border-crossing gypsy bum.
Oh, it'd be innocent like, "Um,
if you don't mind me asking, what's your heritage?"
And they'd ask it so often that I'd get embarrassed
because I knew they weren't asking cause they knew Dad or Mom
or they were doing research on ancestry.com
or they were doing a country scavenger hunt and needed my mark.
They ask because they want to know what makes me dark.
To me, I'm not even all that tan
Not compared to my mom, who passes for Mexican
But I've noticed that my skin isn't pink and pale
like 90 percent of the motherfuckers who desire to know,
in the first 30 seconds of meeting me, my great-grandparents'
Ellis Island tale.
But it's not just the Norwegians, Swedes and Irish,
It's all of y'all, too. Red, black and blue
Who desire to categorize me through and through.
Hey, I can't blame you. I'd love to be an easy statistic.
That would keep my sanity at times from going ballistic
But so far, I know of no clubs or groups looming,
no stations tuning
No organizations for my heritage are blooming
No German-Bulgarian-French-Swiss-Dutch-and-Welsh Student Union
So I am assuming I gotta handle this alone.
Keep explaining my winter tan to whomever wants to know.
My skin tells the story of how my ancestors go
across cities, countries, regions and continents
to America, the land where no one's really a native
So the color of your skin is the only way to hate it.
My skin, instead, traces the path of love.
Each people, each country, coursing through my blood
I see their faces in my tears, hear words of wisdom in my laugh
Every time I sign my name, it's each of their autographs.
The path I now take reflects all of the sacrifices they once did make
My skin is the last remaining tangible ancestral deference
To prevent their total obsolescence
So it pains me to think people take it the wrong way
Like, I don't have blue, green or even hazel eyes
I must be different.
I don't have straight, light-colored hair
I must not be like you
My skin lacks the pink undertones that categorize
the majority of the white people of the Midwest
so you and I cannot be sisters.
You and I cannot be removed a century ago from the same place
You and I do not have a shared ancestral history
so, it is implied, we now know where I stand
and it is in that vaguely-defined category of "Other."
Too miscellaneous to be identified.
To extraneous to be categorized.
Westminster wouldn't put me in their purebred show
so I'll never get that top prize.
My skin has taught me the best way to get to know someone
is to close your eyes
For when you're not worried about the superficial
you can find other things to love, or to despise.
My skin is the product of generations preceding me
coming to the exact same conclusion.
So don't make my skin the question
for which you must immediately find a solution.