They keep asking that old question:
which half of me is
Abruzzese and which is
Mescalero — a question
as old as I am and
maybe older if you think
of how many generations
before me had to hear it —
and if you think about how often
I’ve heard it myself,
you’ll understand that it’s gotten
pretty Goddamn old for me as well.
Tonight I’m looking at myself
naked in a full length mirror
and can’t decide — where, exactly,
are my sections? Am I
Italian waist up? Apache
waist down? Brown left,
White right? Maybe the divisions
are within? Maybe I’m
a blend — always in flux,
swirling like coffee with
milk? Maybe there are
no boundaries at all within me?
Dammit. No. I seek the physical
proof tonight that would
contradict that — some slight
configuration to explain me
to the open eye. I’m tired,
tired of living inside this body
that screams one thing to the world
and holds another back —
I’m tired, tired of my entirety
being invisible, tired of looking
like a lie to myself, tired of how
ridiculous I feel for feeling this way
on days when I am not secure
in full knowledge of myself.
They cannot understand, when they ask
me that question, how old it makes me feel.
One more night before the mirror.
One more night in search of myself.
One more night trying to answer
someone else’s questioning of how it is
that I am both and neither, and all at once
I break the mirror and see it as
the beginning of becoming visible
as a whole being, no lines, no seams.
Dark Matter 