dark skin

there’s a purity in dark skin, he told me

spoken softly into the authenticity and audacity of my existence

an adoration and exaltation of the shadows, the golden, that have draped me in heaven and hell from the moment of first breaths to the seconds of last cries

a resiliency, a statement, an exclamation, an energy, pouring from the depths of my melanin

a strength, he says

he spoke as if he knew that unapologetic blackness finds safety and comfort in the folds of dark skin.