Glutathione Identity

Poetry by | July 3, 2011

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.