A Letter to My Mother

Dear mom, 

Dear mom, I am sorry that I let the boys at school obliterate me until all that was left were broken nothings and paper cuts. Mom, I am so sorry that after Jack told me he didn’t do my type, I couldn't look at myself in the mirror for a week. Dear mom, I am sorry that I drowned myself in sunscreen in the winter to make my skin lighter because all that I could hear in my head was that Jack didn’t do my type. Mom, I am sorry that I asked you to stop dressing, talking, smelling, acting, being so Indian. Mom I am sorry that I hid from our type. Because you walked through fire to place the world before my eyes and the charcoal stains on your bare feet are a reminder that this life is a gift. And to waste it would be to waste the fresh mangos you used to cut up in the summer and the soft kisses you used to place on my shoulder. And to waste all that would be to waste the soil that churns beneath our feet and the sun that paints our skin. And dear mom, I don’t want to waste all that.

Dear Jack, 

I love our type.