when i was in elementary art class,
i would sometimes get paint on my hands
accidentally.
and when i noticed
i started to paint my fingers and palms blue
purposely,
leaving the class with turquoise gloves of crumbling paint
which were quick to reveal my actual skin
when my mom scrubbed them off restlessly.
it was an innocent way to express my creativity
through the swirling patterns of a paintbrush.
but,
isn’t funny how quickly we learn to cover our skin.
now i leave for high school,
and my mom tells me
to not wear Yellow.
“it doesn’t look good on your skin tone,” she says.
“it washes you out,” my sister agrees.
so i wear blue,
the tight foul fabric suffocating me.
my face is an art palette.
it is a combination of hundreds of generations of people
who fell in love.
but in my face,
i only see cool toned colors.
blue, green, purple.
i see the struggles of my country.
i see racism and poverty.
i see my homeland.
i never saw
the warm, fiery hues
of red, orange, and Yellow.
but i learned to see a love for my country and the culture i come from.
i now see my beautiful Hindu heritagethe festival of lights, the festival of colours.
so when i pick up a paintbrush in ib art today,
i leave with my hands unmarked,
clean from the scars of nasty words
which have now faded into small scratches.
today i wear Yellow instead of blue.
