Black skin, a chiaroscuro of smudged charcoal
against a white piece of paper.
Skin that is flushed pink in its freshness,
sometimes like porcelain, cracked with the
veins carrying dirty brown blood from your
colourless heart.
Black skin, like a place that worships the
dark like it is damned, dark which is both sacred and scares
My skin puzzles, it is revolting and ravishing and
exotic and excommunicated all before it is allowed;
this, which is a fetish and a fire and
a misunderstanding.
Black skin, bathed in eulogies that
I have never needed, a likening to the
light of the world that I do not want to be.
This skin stretches and folds over the
curve of my spine, black tattooed to permanence
simply existing.
Black like coal before it turns to ash, before
it is pressured into white diamonds,
black before anything else, stop.
This black is not here to make a statement,
the politics of my skin is a quiet kind,
it wins, when it just is.
Let my black exist.
It claims its own being.
Megha Mukherjee is currently in the last lapse of chasing a Bachelor's Degree in English. In her spare time, she pets dogs, writes poetry she secretly wishes to perform and wages war in the comments section of Facebook posts.