his skin is very white, he asks, “is it weird when we stare?”
covered under my dark green dress is my brown skin,
brown as in arabian sands, brown as in pakistani apricots,
brown as in not very brown, but not white either,
his face is the face on television sets and laptop screens,
mine is the one tied to metaphorical chains and
without will,
of course i mind when he stares,
he is the hyped up face of universality,
white skin, blue eyes,
i am the face tied to death and dungeons,
the backward, the immigrant, the leech,
“we don’t see people like you very often”
and i don’t know what to say because
in the time we’ve been talking five of “my type” have passed us by,
“is it weird when we stare?” i ask back,
because i grew up in the desert and before today i’ve never seen a
boy with pierced ears
and he laughs and says, “of course, but that’s different”
why is that different, i almost ask but i know his answer
it’s different because he is blue eyes and white skin
and i am no skin to show and eyes that stay downcast
so he is more human and more entitled to decency on
the subway trains where someone once told me
to take my mask off because this was the West
and so how dare I bring my East to the show?
so i shrug and say, “of course it’s weird when you stare”
he’s taken aback like he wanted me to say that we were humanized
by his white stare on our covered backs because after all,
“i’m just curious as to why” he says, like it’s any reason at all,
“you could just ask” i say, knowing full well what he’s going to say,
“isn’t that rude?”
and at that point, i don’t know what to say
so i just stare.

Originally published in White Wall Review 41 (2017)