Breadcrumb #571

ELENA SOLEDAD

I was my own introduction to brown women.
Acted as I believed my birth mother would.
Brought up on stereotypes
Watching my friends’ mothers use their smarts and beddable knowledge
to create the life they knew.
Brown women.
And although my mother tried to comfort me with the fact that she
was not “white, but olive” complexion,
our thinking was the differentiation,
of adaption versus adoption.
I did not desire cupidity.
I wanted to have the audacity,
to question everything I’ve ever known.
I wanted to experience all the places they told me not to go.
And then in a blink of an eye…
they took me home.
Arms wide open to a woman I’ve never known,
she came with others, who had faces like my own.
My protean ability to configure languages,
had the “R”’s rolling off my tongue like ripples.
In a room full of families,
I had never felt more alone
even though he came together like brown paint stipples.
Tangible hugs then became mountainous words.
“Te quiero hijita”
She says to me.
I look at my mom for permission that I didn’t want.
And I whisper it back,
“Te quiero tambien”.
Brown woman.
Brown mother.
Mami.
You are not “olive”.
I touch her hand…
You are not “olive”.
I’ve missed you.
These are the words I could never say to my olive mother,
Please continue to keep loving me brown.

• • •