tan-white girl

tan-white girl sits sandwiched 

between the bottle-blonde volleyball captain

and the bracefaced leader of the Model UN 

club. her skin is milk-white, littered with 

freckles. her eyes are wide, doe brown.

her hair is ironed flat; her curls are too

messy to look good in a ponytail. 

tan-white girl comes from a place

where people dance in the streets 

and eat buñelos until their bellies are

full and warm. the men play dominoes,

and drown their dinners with firewater;

she doesn't know the Spanish word for it.

Spanish is word vomit that she chokes on

every time she is called on in class. 

but English falls off her tongue, as she

boldly states her stance on scene 5 act 3

of Macbeth.

tan-white girl feels lost between two

worlds, and neither seems to fit.