My Brownness and Me

By | 1 February 2021

My mother is from the interiors of Sumari.
Forgive me, I am brown
and I speak Garhwali – a dialect
from the hills. I once sat on a
hurricane of love and travelled
far, as far as Haworth, to be flanked
by the Brontes; long dead.

Cobbled on streets, touched the moors
having left Heathcliff in Srinagar
I walked towards the Humber bridge
and settled my feet in Scarborough,
where my favourite Anne Bronte was buried,
after an illness, which then, had no cure.

My Brownness I shared with my
mates from Thessaloniki.
How beautiful are these women from
the Mediterranean, said my Welsh boyfriend.
I pinched his cheeks and swallowed my curses
with a lyrical smile. This much of decency
I clung to, but it weighed me down.

Years full of spit and shame, scabs and screams.
Hey bog! How brown! Ugly frown!
Where’s your town?
I let them be.
This space that I called my own
I held in my squatter’s palm.

This entry was posted in 100: BROWNFACE and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

Related work:

  • No Related Posts Found

Comments are closed.