Brown Skin
small wound #51
First Act: brown.music
Second Act: brown.poetry
Brown Skin
Brown skin.
Honey skin.
Bronze skin.
Midnight skin.
Immigrants come
in many shades
of brown.
Born moving,
the moment we first rose to our feet,
we began wandering
across open land.
Through borders,
mountains,
forests,
and roads emptied by distance.
We carried the world
from one horizon
to another.
We crossed oceans
with entire lives
beneath our skin,
a suitcase heavy with
the remnants
of a collapsing homeland:
recipes,
songs,
traditions,
survival,
an entire country
preserved inside memory.
We are not from here.
We are from everywhere.
We belong to no one,
to no single place.
We belong only
to one another.
Brown is the color of the soil
where immigrants are buried.
Hunted.
Murdered.
Insulted.
Erased.
Forced to carry
the guilt of other people’s histories,
crushed beneath the weight
of inherited blame.
To survive,
the immigrant learned a language,
reshaped their voice,
left behind family,
friends,
home,
pieces of who they once were.
The immigrant became
something unfinished,
stitched together
by necessity.
Rewritten.
Rewritten.
Rewritten.
Until the mirror
no longer answered back.
Brown like dead roots,
dried blood,
coffee grounds,
mud,
aged paper.
And still,
the immigrant takes dying soil
and makes it fertile.
The immigrant grows gardens
in the desert.
We bleed
while building impossible things.
The immigrant keeps walking.
We keep walking.
In search of a place to breathe.
We cross galaxies,
voids,
entire millennia.
We search for oxygen.
Instead,
we find dreams.
Author’s Note: I’m an immigrant. This is my story.
I left Venezuela when I was 23 years old. It’ll be soon 12 years since I migrated for the first time. And I haven’t stopped since.
Almost 9 million Venezuelans have migrated out over the course of the last 11 years. Making us the country with the biggest displacement crisis of recent history.
Yes, my skin color might be white, but my roots are brown.
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I have a burning desire to create, and a dream to make a living off it.
With love, Kasu
Experience previous colors:
Every quiet gesture helps.
Yes! Brilliant. I love this one. People forget this was all of us at one point. It's easier that way.
@Laura B I think you will feel this one by @Kasu (small wounds).