her skin is color is brown but she wants it to be white
white
like the color of the people in the land of honey and milk
home of the free and the brave.
white
she wants her color to be white
cause God favors the white
and so
she bleached her sun kissed brown skin
with expensive therapies and medicines
brown
her skin is color brown
brown
like the color of mud
like the color of her mood when she’s sad
brown skin
the color of third world citizens
she doesn’t like her brown skin
its history and what it represents
corruption and poverty
revolutions and slavery
but she has to know that
changing one’s skin
will never change what’s within
And that
medication
modernization
globalization
will never alter the fact
that she is the daughter
of her brown skin forefathers
who fought hard
started a revolution
so she would have the freedom,
to bleach her brown skin
white
—
Shiela Mae Milla studies economics at the University of Southeastern Philippines.