Love Your Skin.

    She has fierce eyes that both looked intense and crinkled when she throws her head back in a loud laughter or smiled. Her skin is the color of charcoal , dark as the bottom pot of burnt rice. Only glows when she smears cocoa butter or  coconut oil onto  it, never glows in the dark nights just those fierce eyes do.

  It is a Saturday morning , and rumble of the morning traffic groans outside. Her coffee cup cradled in her hands and close to her lips as she looks out the window to the side of the road and  remembers when she was seven years how the school girls laughed at her charcoal skin. Most of  the African plays in school she plays the witch, 'black signifies evil and danger' she was taught in school.

  But she loves the color black, dark colors were her thing. Her mom would tell she looks invisible when she wears black t-shirts over dark jeans.
 'Dear, why don't you wear those orange jumpsuits or blue will bring out your color more.' She says to her.

  She became angry about her skin color because of the way she is shamed about it. She have wanted to change the color in her University days. It was on that rainy day, as the rain drops makes tick-tock sounds on the roof and splash across the Veranda, Dele tells her that's over between them. He says  he likes a light-skinned girl now the one her skin is like overripe paw-paw.

    It has been two years,  though she sometimes misses Dele as she paints on a canvas onto the balcony of her two  bedroom flat, he pops into her head. She never changed her color loves the black skin now. And dares to wear black on black to the park on  those warm afternoons to listen to the twittering birds.

  She had met him at park, Chima,  the photographer that loves capturing her charcoal skin, the fierce eyes when she throws her head back in a  loud laughter. He makes her crack her ribs and tears roll down in hard laughter as her eyes crinkles.

 "Black is beautiful" he whispers to her, they sat side to-side. They were only just friends. But the way he stares into her eyes and held her hand in his made her feel something.  It was warm and settling like the first time they met and he told her "I love your skin".


'Bleaching your skin is not an option. Love your skin. Stop using chemicals to destroy the beauty of the African skin. Black is beautiful'.