My Letters to You

Scrub Growing up in my culture the women would press us out to scrub hard. No, not the dishes, our bodies. I was born as a dark-skinned Indian girl. As a child, school taught me to be proud of that. I was taught to embrace and share my culture with the world. But behind closed doors I was told, “you’re getting too dark” and the whitest shade of powder would be smeared across my face making me as light as a clown. At least it fit what I felt like, right? This was beauty in the eyes of Indian women. Yes. Be ashamed of your skin, scrub it away, scrape it off, do what you must to be as white as a colonizer. Then, and only then, will you be pretty. Us dark skinned girls were told to scrub away our color with turmeric; being as yellow as a minion is better than being myself? We were told to drown in sunscreen on the beach, to not play outside in the sun for too long, and to stay in the shade and wear conservative clothing so the rays don’t reach our skin because it was thought to make us darker. How can we control what color we are? It’s the melanin in our skin. At the end of the day, we are all human. Why does it bother you if I am darker than him? If it is meant to be then he will stay. Is being dark really that bad of a sin? If so, what can I do to erase it? You name it, I’ve tried it. All except taking a peeler straight to my skin. As I grew older, my perspective changed. I came out of my little bubble and took my real first steps. I got to see the world on my own terms, it’s no heaven but it’s no hell either. I saw all the successful colored women, who came in every shade of chocolate, vanilla, and everything in between. I felt like a child outside of an ice-cream shop. No, not inside because I was still not lean, but that’s another issue. My point being, color only scratches the surface and, dark skinned or light, everyone deserves to be called a queen. You Can Be Loved A love song isn’t always for someone else. When you close your eyes and listen to the words they sing, you picture your smile and your hair down in the wind. That’s love my dear, so let your heart sing. Homesick You are homesick for a place you’ve never even been. A place where pain goes to die and suffering wears thin. A place where genuine love lies within. A place where happiness is not treated as a sin. A place where you can let yourself fall without the world caving in. You are homesick for a new place to begin. Faded Nights Do you remember the love we shared, how much we cared before the nights went black? Or did those fade into the nights we made memories that’ll never come back?