STAIN

STAIN

Niya McAdoo

Her arms hold me close, milky in color and strong like reassurance.

She is me, in my face when I smile and in my walk with my head high.

But she is not me in the way we get stares wondering who I am to her, and what is she doing with someone like me attached at her hip.

Little brown girls surround her legs, milky white legs that hold us up when sneers come our way, wondering what she could see in the mud stains that litter her skin.

She loves the hot coffee no cream in her mornings, the darkness that surrounds her at night. She loves the caramel that embraces her cheeks with little hands and tells her she is their universe.

We are her taboo, the soft whispers asking who do we belong to, because her love could not create such unidentified bodies. We are the unclaimed history of children not equal, othered in every sense, not belonging to one check box but multiple.

She will never be me but with her I’m free. She does not disgrace me. I am proud to be her other because without her there is no me - the stain on the corner of her bleached tee.

My mother. She is the root of We.

Bait - Niya McAdoo