Does the color of my skin tell my story?
I wonder—
for stories run deeper than pigment,
and pain doesn’t always wear a name.
Many think they know what we’ve carried—
but truth is,
even we must step back sometimes
just to see the scars
we didn’t know we had.
I was once a friend,
chosen not for my laughter or light,
but because her mother feared
being seen as what she was.
And what did she see in me?
Not black, she said. Not quite.
As though my skin had been
softened by bloodlines—
Cherokee, Blackfoot, African roots
braided with the breath of Europe.
Scottish hills, German iron, Irish rain.
Still I ask—
how did she see that in me?
I remember the woman
whose ears knew only my voice—
and when we met,
her surprise was a blade:
“You tricked me… I can’t believe you’re black.”
I swallowed the ache,
eyelids trembling under the weight
of dignity and disbelief.
At the insurance firm,
my second “big break,”
they called me their token—
a word I didn’t yet understand.
I had hoped they saw skill,
not skin.
Yet somehow,
we became a family there,
against the odds.
So I teach my children:
Wear every thread of your heritage with pride.
No one else must live in your skin—
let them judge,
but never let them define.
Now, I speak.
Now, I share.
So that others might see
not just the skin—
but the soul,
and maybe learn
what it truly means
to live as a person of color.
The Writings of Felina Silver 
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