When I was younger, the only thing I could ever want was to be white.

To not have someone look at me and spit the word "Nigger", and find it to be true.

Or look into a mirror and find my skin color was just the right shade of mud.

or find my eyes were one shade off the shit smear in your toilet bowl.

I wanted was to be beautiful, pure and snowy.

To blush and have my pale cheeks redden to a bright pink,

or have my eyes be the color of the sky on a summer day and the ocean.

I wanted my outside to match exactly how I felt on the inside.

Beautiful.

Because, I didn’t look white, but people said I sure sounded white.

How could I be black, when I my vocabulary is so impeccable and my manner of speech so pristine?

When my voice speaks out every syllable and follows through with every word, never missing an ‘R’ or an ‘S’?

When my posture can be so straight and exact, none could ever imagine my back in the awkward slouch often perceived of the average black person.

How could I be black, when my grades are so great, I could do the stuff an average black person does, getting into all those drugs and clubs and gangs.

I can never be black, but I can never be white.

All I need is a place where I can fit as myself, if that place exists.