And then I realized…

                                                 

Smooth thinning figure walking down hallways of transitions. Sipping the wealth of other nations from a dirty cup. I coughed it out. It was not the same but it was the closest I was ever going to get so I put it to my lips again.

Straighten those tight, nasty stubborn curls that swirled in perfect circles around my face. Straighten those goddamn things so it doesn’t really accentuate my thick lips and fat cheeks and too small eyes and flat nose. Straighten it, goddammit! It was not the same but it was the closest I was ever going to get.

Squeezing, shimmying skin into body condoms and waist accentuators and then into tight jeans. Hide the extra fat on my huge backside, a passage from the generations, and flatten those uselessly huge balloons of a chest. Under wrap they would go. Let me burn off the confounded dark skin. Bleach it! Bleach it! Burn it off till it melts away to a milky cream. It was not the same but it was the closest I was ever going to get.

Pain for Beauty. A huge price to pay for that perception of Beauty but it was said to be Beauty so I would pay it! Sacrifice for the magazines and the movies and the illusions of distorted identity.  This Beauty was not in curls, or huge backsides and small waists and curved bodies. It had to be thin and blonde and…

And then I realized… I am African.