i am unique.

but i am actually so similar

to a lot of people in the usa

which is where my body 

resides in.

i have a mother,

who has a father,

who has a father, 

who has a name only god would know

because it was stripped from him,

like he was stripped from his home

in africa,

nobody knows where he came from. 

and i have a father

who has a father,

who has a father,

who has a name that can 

easily

be found in records,

all lined up nicely, and dated even to the day

because his family chose to leave their 

original homes in

europe

even though deeply in my veins

i can feel the struggle

remain,

and the blood i hold is the mingling

of the oppressed and the 

oppressor.

but nobody would know that.

because i bear the skin of our oppressors,

but the soul of who was considered inhuman

and the passion to carry on the fight.

but

my body is a battlefield of physical characteristics,

that even made out of love,

bears only the nose and lips

of what we are,

what people had tried so long to erase. 

and no, 

i do not take lightly the fact that i could

if i wanted to,

chose to make a different story

and let my history die,

but sometimes i really, 

really,

wish that i could have the honor

to proudly wear every single

physical characteristic,

of what could have been lost,

and be able to show to the father

of the father

of my mother

that i am the completion of a long burning

“american” dream. 

and maybe

so i could be able to find peace in my skin,

and not live in a place that 

only maybe exists in the hearts of

some of us. 

-Brynn Nelson ‘25