To be called a color, but not a color at all

I have to take time for myself.

Because I found wells within me.

Filled with lapis lazuli tear drops.

That formed underneath my feet.

Underneath, there is truth buried.

Packed with mahogany bled from yoni.

This blood has made me the woman I am becoming.

Crossed legged and amused.

By the pain that brought me here.

To a body that I inherit.

Bred by ancestors, removed by colonists.

Today I was asked to show ID, to prove that I am native to a family

that I was spirited into.

I found wells within me, filled with lapis lazuli tear drops.

As I cried for the girl that wore a pocahontas costume from the

age of 9.

Because I knew in my heart that I was grown from corn.

But if you ask the government, I am not native to this land

because my skin is darker than my relatives.

What are you? They ask.

Are you black or spanish?

I say I am indigenous..

And they tell me that my hair is to thick,

to resemble the corn mothers.

Selu unitsi.

I cry for you and the women that came after.

For the ones that had to prove that their wombs

birth this nation.

And between silences, I think of the color pink.

A rose kissed flower that was supposed to make me.

You see, this color is the foundation above the girl,

that stood on a turtle's back and gave birth through her speech.

And yet, it infused with the hue of my tear drops.

As I take pride in reclaiming my place in a tribe,

that they took their time in making them forget me.

I stand here, above a well within me.

Full of tear drops, flowing into the water that we drink.

Remembering.