chocolate chip cookies and the long way home
“who do you think you look like more,” you asked,
on a hot august day (as they usually are),
“your mom or your dad?”
you swung back and forth on the wooden swing, hanging from a tree.
i drawled my reply, thick as the air.
“my dad, it’s why i get called a chink when i walk through the halls.”
(i always end up being a bit too sardonic, too mean, too harsh)
i’m sitting on the sticky grass, pulling it out thoughtlessly.
“oh, i’m sorry.” you said,
haltingly in a way your blonde hair allowed.
your eyes fogged with confusion (and they were blue, of course)
you looked towards me, and i know you were noticing things you hadn’t before.
i stared away from you, “it’s fine.”
i said it like an apology
and (not for the first time) i thought,
maybe blue eyes aren’t meant to meet brown ones.
you powered on, “who do you think you act like more?”
it always shocked me the ways you felt heavy things,
and then moved like you were made of helium.
(i’ve been thinking that maybe it’s because you don’t have to carry them)
“i’m not having fun anymore,” i said,
as if i was having any fun at all in the first place
(i’m willing to do a lot so you can live under the impression that we are having fun)
“i don’t want to play anymore.”
you grinned at me from the damned swing
(the sunlight turned you a brief, dazzling gold)
“come on, it’s just a question.”
your grip on the ropes were loose and lax.
“why does it matter?” i said, voice like thin ice.
i pulled the grass out like it did something to me.
green isn’t blue, but green isn’t brown either.
(i think too much of blue, sometimes, and too much of languages i can’t speak)
“who do you see in the mirror,” you asked,
walking backwards into the swing before letting gravity do its part.
(your grip on the ropes is still trusting and gentle)
i stare at your converse kicking up at the sky and wonder why you’re so damn unfair.
“i see my mother,” i bit out, harsher than i wanted to.
“i see my mother and her mother.”
(i see blue eyes in my brown ones)
i bring my knees up to my chest and forget about the grass.
“see?” you said blithely, “that wasn’t so hard,
moms are nice anyways.”
you’re still swinging like you want to touch the sky,
(that blue, blue sky)
i laughed, i tried not to (i forgot i was angry for a moment)
“maybe in your world,” i said with a grin that was all teeth.
sometimes i wonder if someone leaned in to taste the roof of my mouth
if it’d be sweet or sour.
a poem on mixed race (and the complications of having a white mother and white friends)
