Mariela Videla

Rose-petaled at dawn, I saw the world 
through blue eyes, for an instant. 
Within a year they were gone. 

Some days I wished they had stayed, 
but they were never mine. 
I had only borrowed them, 

my nana’s eyes.
Like I borrowed my middle name, 
from a country that would never be mine. 

I was born for these evergreens 
under rain-laced skies. Never learning to speak 
a language other than home. 

Any thread tying me overseas is only 
the threads of my hair, the dark strands 
of my sister, my mother, my poh poh. 

My tongue is rebellious, it will not learn 
to flick or flutter or roll. It will not warm 
to the mellifluous sound of sunshine 

in my nana’s soul.
Our bones did not rise from the same ground. 
But I share with you this form.

I share with you the price of this rose skin. 
Bound by it just as they bound their feet
to make them beautiful. 

When I tried to fit your shoes, 
I found them already too small. 
I wished for pink, but it was a softer shade 

than I could ever be. 
I belong to a color of twilight,
where the night does not yet belong to itself. 

Where white stars and yellow moon suspend 
a single sky over my head,
waiting to know the pink light of dawn.