it was nostalgia.
yearned familiarity
of a taste never tasted when
their tongues met.
she was salt,
he, the sea she devoured.
his brown back swathed in
maps to home.
she was home until
he tells her she is the first brown woman he slept with.
this is not the validation she imagined.
until hairy nipples are realized discovery
legs of women before her
were soft aftershave
sheeny, glistening gold.
this is not what he imagined.
this is exactly what he imagined.
hers was a line of black hair above lips,
on stomach, up unto chest resting
in comfort of being furtively read
on a heart too big to break,
a love that could wait,
would wait.
hers was a tongue too familiar
body, estranged.
Numerous times, I have felt (as someone on the fairer end of the brown spectrum) and have spoken to brown women who have felt their bodies would never be pursued/ desired by brown men the same way a white and fair body is. This is a poem to the women who are caught between finding a home in someone and feeling inadequate. If you know, you know.
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