Growing Up Halo-Halo

SAD feels like a deep aching in my chest  Something lodged so far there's no pulling it out  Even when I try to ease my figurative hand in I can't reach it No matter how hard or loud I cry  It won't shake it, doesn't rattle it Despite how tightly I wrap my arms around my ribcage  It won't pop it out of place I recall being a sunshine girl  Such a different version of myself  And I wonder where the hell she went Where the sun went  Why is it too easy  To allow myself  To leave  Eventually the ache subsides but I know it's still in there It comes back, in the darkness of the spaces my mind preoccupies  I lay in bed grasping for warmth Hoping the layers that I cover my head with  Might save me, maybe this time  But it always finds a way between the sheets Sometimes I long for someone to pick up this weight  If merely fleetingly  Yet I ask myself  If anyone could truly lift it  Am I the cookie in the cup...

 And oh how I wish I could erase it.  How much strength would it take to push it away, push it down? How much pain would it inflict to strip it from myself, from the inside out? How hard should I scrub to get this layer off of me? How much wealth would I have from the amount of people that tell me You're still white.  Have I talked about my proximity enough?  Have I talked about my privilege enough? Have I talked about my resentment enough? You're still white. It's never, do you identify as white? It's never, are you connected to your Caucasian background? I was born into a western society, and so I live accordingly. Held by both bigoted cuffs and resignation. Constraints I viewed as real, rules that felt like binding contracts I didn't even realize I signed. Whose hand was it that held the pen? From all the time I absorbed other people, shaped myself to who they saw, accepted that this was what I was supposed to be. I swallowed their words You're still white. N...