offbeatmel:

Dear Blackout,

My mother has never called me by name, 

she calls me beautiful

“How was your day, beautiful?”

“Beautiful, help clean up.”

“Yes, beautiful?”

And I believed her.

But then I turned on the tv,

flipped through the magazines,

saw the only thing deemed a “beauty”

to look nothing like me. 

And as all the boys chased my friends,

with flirtatious words, fawning over fair faces, 

mine received not one glance

not one word

and the silence erased my mother’s words

in a deafening, hollowing way.

But days like today,

moments like this,

I hear her loud and

clear 

(once again)

“I see you, beautiful.”

“I love you, beautiful.”

”Beautiful.”

And so thank you, blackout,

for the reminder, 

sweet as honey,

warm as my mother’s voice,

that my black is beautiful.

(You all are beautiful to me.)

-m.g.