Dark Like Me

16~Ugly Truth

I am sitting in my room and I make a realization that the only time Nick is nice to me is when he wants something. I begin to feel down and tears spill from my eyes while my breathing becomes heavier by the minute. I produce a skin-bleaching product called Perfect White Skin Lightening Beauty Cream.

I ordered this online a few years ago, my 8th-grade year of middle school when some boy threaten to kill me due to my dark skin. The house is silent with everyone sleeping. I sit up and look at the unopened product, I read the back of it and open it.

Everything just seems to be falling apart around me. Alchemy, my brother, the strangers, my peers, even the ones that are the same skin tone as I am have taken jabs at me. I can see myself in the mirror of the vanity, tears rolling down my face. I stare and try to imagine myself a lighter brown. Maybe a pecan brown or a chocolate brown instead of this horrid dark burnt black.

"No one will ever adopt something like you," an 8-year-old light skin boy teases Sirrah.

Sirrah is backed into a corner with her knees drawn to her chest, her gray eyes look up at her teasers. She was minding her own business trying to read a book, still upset that her best friend had been adopted. These kids came up to her, smacked the book out of her hands, and started pointing at Sirrah.

"Yeah, she's too dark. They won't be able to see her," A 7-year-old pecan brown skin girl spits. They walk off laughing.

Sirrah shivers and picks the book back up and tries to read it again.

I get up and stand in the vanity mirror. Everything just looks horrible, but my dark skin is what stands out the most. It is what I hate the most. It is the reason why I cannot get a date or a boyfriend. It is the reason why I don't have friends. It is the reason why I don't have friends. It is the reason why my life is so shitty.

 I begin to think about my birth parents and if I have siblings. I wonder if they too struggle with being melanin. If they struggle, how do they cope with it? Do their friends betray them?

My father knocking at my door jerks me out of my thought process.

"Sirrah? Sweetie?"

It's time to ask father about my birth parents and if I've got any siblings. And if it's possible that I can meet them or talk to them.

"Yes?" I ask with the product still in my hand. I have unknowingly dipped my fingers in it and was getting ready to smear it all over my face and my body.

"Did you want to speak to me?" He reminds me.

Oh yeah. I did tell him I wanted to have a few words with him last night.

I sigh, "Yeah, just give me a few minutes."

"Alright. I will be in the kitchen."

I hear his footsteps depart from my door.

Maybe I can speak to with him, no just about the Alchemy ordeal but about the way I feel about my skin. I can do that instead of resorting to chemically damaging my skin. I wipe my fingers on a dirty towel, close the jar back, and hides it under my bed. I get dressed in my clothes that I have decided to wear for school and head into the kitchen where my father said he would be.