Lavanya Krishna

Bangalore, India

Afraid of the Dark

I didn’t know what a skort was when I first walked into the homeroom. I didn’t know what homeroom was, either. My teacher said, “a skort is in between a skirt and shorts. Both and neither. Like you. Indian and American.”

My complexion was the skin-tight scar from a terrible accident – my birth. I said my name wrong. The smells from my lunch box were mistakes.

The day they let me play with them, I found the best hiding place. They didn’t find me that day. Or the next. On the third day, I saw her see and unsee me- a heavy realization for a five-year-old.

Martin Luther King Jr. Day. “Melanin is not a crime.”

She pushed the chair in, splitting my lip. “I don’t like brown people.”

I had a dream too. Some dreams just don’t make it.

I thought my on/off accent is the only stamp that my country left on me. But Amma became Mom over there. She still is, sometimes. I don’t know if the sky is grey or gray. But I was afraid of the dark then. The dark on my face, down my legs, in my hair.

Not anymore.