My Skin is Brown

My skin is brown.

Like the color of creamed coffee

Or the rich sand of a tropical beach

Somewhere in the middle of nowhere.

My hair is reddish gold (for now).

It rests on my head like

Flames rest on the heads

Of Roman torches.

I am explosive.

I hear that fire signs usually are.

My brain is different.

It’s called autism. And ADHD

And OCD. And Anxiety. And PTSD.

I just call it me

My heart is huge.

I love longer than eternity.

I hurt deeper than the Dead Sea.

I cry buckets for broken families

And my sobs for the broken-hearted

Run like rivers down my earth-toned cheeks.

I am a woman who has loved men and a woman.

I am a mother of wayward sons and

Precocious daughters.

I have big enough dreams to make

Entire galaxies blush.

What else would you like to know?

That I sleep with a teddy bear named

Ella that I got from a drug addict

In a homeless shelter

At age sixteen?

Or that I was raped

Three different times

By three different men

In the exact same manner?

I don’t know what else to share.

Except that the biggest mystery

Is that my soul shines brighter

Than the moon and burns hotter

Than the sun and holds the

Promise of the universe.