Monsoon Leaves

He lived in India for six years as a child.

He saw the people with kind hearts unhindered by the smoke,
who wove baskets by the congested streets.

He liked how they would toss him a strip of their monsoon grass and
he would hold it tightly for the rest of the day.
Their kindness felt warm in his hands.

When it rained,
he would try and weave himself a boat to float him to dry land where the sun
shone all day and no one stared at his white skin like they wanted
to take it and sell it, maybe you use the money to set up a basket stand.

But, he kept the grass leaves piled up in his room and when he
could not rub the white from his skin, he would tear them in half
to reject their curiosity and it began to crack his own skin; he watched the leaves lose their color.

He moved to America when he was seven.

A smile on the world map decorated in freedom, democracy, and red, white, and blue, roads paved with signs of "Now Hiring" and "For Sale", a confusing congestion that excited him, running through the busy city, men in suits, women in heels, click-clack, click-clack.

He would watch the small chubby children play with the artificial wood on
the playground and he found joy in the way falsity was encouraged and
the way India was seen as some distant land, a country mentioned only in donation ad's and fliers for "Feed the Children".

The boy grew older. He heard when people began to criticize the flecks in his skin, scars from the painful heat in India and the whispers of rumors that he had lied about where he once lived when he was six, it was then that he had no monsoon leaves to rub.

He could not weave a boat or wait for the rain to stop, he could not
scrub the white from his skin.