My skin is my character.
My character is the voice of my mother.
My character is the laughter of my grandmother.
My character is the resilience of my aunties.
My character is the boldness of my father.
My character is the strength of my ancestors.
My ancestors who left their homeland in search for a better life,
Never to return there.
My character is of my great,
Great,
Great grandmother who spoke Hindi and made roti,
And who brought her culture and her essence to a new land where the weather was hot,
Where she did not understand the language.
And yet,
She persevered.
She found hope in the skin that she lived in,
In the skin that's her mother's laughter,
And her grandmother's smile,
And her aunties' singing.
The skin that I live in,
It is strong.
It is tough.
It is soft,
And it is smooth.
It gets goosebumps when I'm excited.
It radiates in the sunshine.
It is cooling like the pearls of water that dance down my brown skin as I emerge from the life-giving waters of the ocean on a summer's day.
This skin holds my daughter closely in my arms.
This skin gives warm cuddles to my dog.
This skin is the skin that my partner knows,
One that he can rely on in good days and in bad.
This skin is my skin.
This skin is my character.
It has the DNA of all the people that came before me.
It has the DNA of water,
Of earth,
Of wind,
Of fire.
It is the miracle created by the Almighty.
This skin is my skin.