They told me to wash it off —
that part of me,
the voice that cracks when I speak of love,
the arms that hold too tightly,
the heart that bleeds at the sight of beauty.

But I kept it.
The tremor in my hands when I reach for things I’ve lost.
The way I hold my breath before I let people see me.
The ache that fills me like an open wound
no matter how I try to clean it.

They said I should erase it —
the way my name trembles on my tongue,
the way my laughter breaks open old wounds
they thought they’d healed.
But I remember those wounds,
and I remember how they shaped me.

They told me it was ugly,
that stains don’t belong where they can be seen,
that my skin was too dark to be pure.
I’ve heard their whispers —
the ones that try to erase what cannot be hidden.

But this?
I wear it like the first tear of a mother
whose child is still too young to know fear.
I carry it like the soft ache of someone finally learning to forgive.
I walk like the one who has been broken,
but never destroyed.

When they ask
how I stay soft,
how I stay human,
I’ll say —
You call it a stain.
I call it my skin.