Dear America,
You were supposed to be everyone’s dream. You promised us freedom, to not look behind my shoulder and want to stay home hoping I will be safe for the day. Equality, to have everyone look at each other the same way. To be loved, to feel like you’re needed and wanted and not be alone.
But it’s not there. You’re full of hate. You broke your promise.
It all started in 7th grade. When I started to learn about your history in Mrs. B’s class. That you hated my people and put them through slavery in the worse way. You discriminated and segregated us for your own selfish wants. That you wanted us gone and to never exist. You still do. Your people made you evil America. You’re caught in a past you’re not willing to let go.
In that same year, when my body started to grow into the woman I’m going to be, I was walking to the bus stop, the chilly wind cutting at the bridge of my neck and rushing to get ready making a burning feeling the pit of my stomach. I saw him, standing at the same corner I do. I didn’t think too much of it and stood next him. He had white skin, ball cap, and looked like an average college student. I felt his eyes on me, the eyes of a man looking at a woman not a child. I am nervous. My palms are sweaty, knowing that something bad is going to happen. My heart is racing, and I feel cornered. My bus came. I was so relieved that tears came down my eyes. Knowing that I will be safe just for a moment.
You broke me. You made my life something out of a horrible movie. Wishing I could be somewhere else entirely. Your people made me hate my color. Wishing that I was born with blue eyes, long straight hair, creamy skin. Crying myself to sleep because I’m not like those girls over there.
You’ve already decided my fate. Saying that I will be a teenage mom, that my baby daddy will never pay his child support on time, that I will live in full poverty. I want to run away from you. Sometimes I even want to die. Watching the news, wondering will this be the end?
I hate you!
I hate you!
I hate you!
I hate me too...
