Portrait of an Afro-Latino

My story,

Like my name,

Speaks the truth of identity,

of ownership

Plain white is the start of a portrait’s journey

I believed colors would find their place on my canvas

Effortlessly

Mindlessly

Life has a way of changing your perceptions of beliefs

An alien for a mother

Copper as my currency

The stars hardly lost their allure to the fragile mind

Stars are not to be reached,

They are to be made

While attempting to create a reflection of society

In hopes of reaching the stars

My canvas drowned in bleach

Colors splashed during infancy forgotten

Whiteness stared at me in the face

And I blinked

My color palette had vanished

My effortless mindless creation tarnished

The portrait no longer had an artist

just anguish, oppression, defeat

Time saw a new color palette develop

Joy and strength were vibrant hues

Bold were the new shades

Environment saw a new artist emerge

Confidence surged through muddy brown bleach

Acceptance breathed life into the new journey of this are piece

White had been the cage of Anglo-Americans

who confined my art to shades of grey, black, and blue

Black was now the image of beautiful bouncy curls

Blue the color of the new sky under which I paint

Yellow the hue of the laughter radiating from self-love

Rules of color and palettes shattered

My portrait would not be painted by others

As my portrait came into a new age

Gone were the colors of infancy

but present were the strokes of identity

All that was missing was a name

Much like the portrait,

the artist had caved into norms from infancy

The alien who gave me her tongue as a gift deserved more

My canvas was to encompass all facets of me

Spoken through the alien dialect

Far from the white average

My name is Andriw – not Andrew.