my father is sexist, yeah—saying it still feels strange, ’cause I know he provided, kept gas in the tank, food on the plate, money steady, roof never shaking, but his words still left stains that don’t wash out easy. and I still love him, don’t twist that into something clean, but if he wore another face I swear I wouldn’t stay to see. another body, another voice, another man— I wouldn’t follow that pattern again, wouldn’t hum along to his songs at all, would let silence break the refrain. I’d cut myself loose from the trees, from every root that taught me how to breathe, make my own songs, my own keys, my own ease, burn the map he built inside of me. then I’d go to the biscuit tin my mother hides, thread tangled quiet in the inside, and stitch shut the words he lets fall from his mouth— not to hurt him, just to shut the poison down. my grandma says my hair looks messy every time it starts to wave. not a coil—just a bend, but still enough to make her cave. enough to drown her warnings in water she herself gave. and only when heat touches skin, when the sea turns to burned silk thin, does she call it beauty, call it soft, call it feminine. funny—girls with silk burn theirs too just to bend it into shapes like mine. my grandma says she can’t wear colour— said her mother taught her darker girls suffer. red, pink, blue belong to diamond eyes, to golden hair, to snow-lit skies. our shade? only ever dressed in compromise. so her closet stays all black— wall to wall, no turning back, brown folded quiet in between, small rebellions barely seen. and when I walk out into the street, somebody calls me a muse in passing heat— “ for someone with caramel skin, what a view, what a treat,” like I’m something meant to be seen, not feel.