The Girl in the Yellow House • • • Kathryne McCann

TO ALL THE WHITE BOYS WHO BROKE MY HEART

Zahra DeShaw

You’re reading this, and you’re already upset at me. You always tell me that I use white like a slap in the face–“racist” is the sharpest word you’ve ever had to swallow

I don’t know how to tell you that loving you is claustrophobia every time your words shrink my story smaller, the room shrinks with it keeps getting smaller every time you say “I don’t see race” My oxygen fills your lungs.

You told me that I occupy the room when I speak, but you never understood how loud I have to be to drown out all the white noise. Why I cried the night you told me I was bossy.

And isn’t it funny how I work twice as hard to thrive in a country whose scientists tried to prove me stupid, and somehow, you’re the one with the C in Sophomore English?

There are so many things you will never understand. How I give myself away every day just to keep you. How I try to prove to my brown friends that I’m not letting your handprints stain my flag. I wonder if I am lying.

I wonder why I go back to you every time. Why you take up all the space in my poetry, too. Maybe you make me feel more American in the only country I’ve ever known. Maybe I know that you’re as close as I can get to being white. People like you write history So if you say I’m beautiful, it must be true. So if you write my story, I won’t be forgotten.