The Color of My Skin

Ever since I was little,
My friends have always made fun of my skin color.
This continued on into university.

Some people at university would compliment my skin tone and ask me,
“How do you get so tan?”
I would tell them that it wasn’t a tan.
It was my skin color.
I thought they were making fun of me,
And that something was wrong with me.

I didn’t even like pictures of myself,
And I didn’t take care of how I looked,
Because I didn’t want anything to accentuate my skin color even more.
But I’m older now,
And I’ve grown to love myself more.
I now love my skin tone,
And I like accentuating it.
And it makes me happy when people compliment my skin tone,
And tell me that it suits me.

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