The Autobiography of Swirl
“Through a painting we can see the whole world.” - Hans Hofmann
Mulatto; Mulatta
Mestizo; Blanca
Wedita; Hapa
Weda; Half cast
Africana; Halfrican
Mulatta: Africana,
Mestiza: Americana,
Weda: Guerra
Wedita: Blanca
More than a curse, a slur of an object that you have controlled what people see. I am more than these words, you see. These sidewalks have embraced your colored veins.
First school was filled with honeyed taffy skin, second school vanilla hair, the third terracotta lips, and the last a melting pot of hokums. Every morning the sun reigns over me with its incalescence painting with paintbrushes.
Your bristles mark me with specks of ivory, as café fills my lungs with a caramel sensation.
Coffee beans filled in the glass.
The cheval glass shows me what you have embedded into me. Acting as carapace, hiding within mirrors of swirl, you don’t define me. I’ve lived my life as a mulatta, a mestiza, and a blanca, you. The worst is when being ripped apart with you in my blood, renting a foreign tongue of being named illegal. Huevo’s, chile, and tostada's fill the air.
Eggs, bacon, and bread lay in the pit of my stomach like a volcano.
I am swirled like the food I eat and the boarders I cross.
Victimized in the magical words that open us wide open.
City Anthem playing on youtube but through my headphones Baila Esta Cumbia. Panicking like a mannequin, I didn’t always see you. It was others that opened my eyes to that you existed. Yes we have been poisoned with you in my veins but this curse is nothing more then trouble. Questions invading our mindsets, second questioning my identity. In a way I grew up half honeyed taffy and vanilla, along with the questions “What are you?” Or “Are you this or that?” Like music guess you’ve swirled me with both. People thinking being you whirled and swirled is always easy. It’s the complete opposite.
Insecure with your looks because of the paintbrushes that brushes my makeup and skin with the home for atelophobia to stay.
The fear to accept what you and your tangled hair, small lips, vanilla eyes and terracotta lips have interjected into the features that confuse the flowers that
Walk these walls.
Your words are limiting like flows of water. You’ve come in every mixing size, shape, and dialects of fruitful yearnings. There’s no word that fits all. I didn’t always see color.
It was others that opened my eyes to that you existed. That I was different.
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