top of page

Melanin​

i am so white, that if i went for an evening jog by the roadside

i wouldn’t have to stripe myself safe with reflective tape

i could just

roll my shirt up a little bit

 

i’m so white, that when i got a tattoo of a white dragon the

tattooist used my bare skin for the dragon’s scales

his white ink

just for the shading

 

i’m so white, that if i walk naked to the bathroom at two in the morning

my lover may mistake me for a ghost

 

i’m so white, that on sunny music festival days

strangers forcibly apply sunscreen to me

because they’re worried

but they need to be

i’m already wearing sunscreen

obviously

i’m so white, i have to swear sunscreen

when there’s a full moon

 

i’m so white, that if i contain my bad hair day under a beautiful scarf

no bus stop stranger will wonder aloud what i’m hiding

or try to snatch it from my head

 

i’m so white, that if i tell you that i work at a university

you don’t assume i mean as a cleaner and

if i do apply for work somewhere else and don’t even get an interview

 i won’t be left wondering if they saw

my name in print

my picture on Facebook and imagined

i’d be lazy or

i’d steal or

i wouldn’t speak English clearly or that

my application wasn’t serious

 

i’m so white, that in twenty years behind the wheel

i have never once been pulled over or

asked to show my licence and

even in America

on the street

at night

it has never occurred to me that i might not be

one hundred percent safe in front of

an armed police officer

 

i’m so white, that when the Maori student advisor

told one of my students that if he ever needed anything

he could also come to me because

i am one of us

my student laughed 

and i couldn’t blame him

© 2025 by Erin J Doyle

bottom of page