Letter to the Latin Woman. A poem.
To the Latin Woman:
Good day, good Woman. And yes, that's a capital W.
I hope this finds you well.
A few reminders I thought necessary to share,
for the Goddesses who have been incubated and raised
by the Warmth that hugs the countries south of the burning equator.
Remember that you have been molded and mined
from the earth's melting core.
You are a precious (rolling) stone, Latin Woman.
You are strong,
with layers of leather skin
just beneath your soft exterior.
Layers that house a certain fragility,
buried deep within like Bukowski's bird
in its cage and crying.
You are all beautiful.
You and your black-bean eyes
and your raining hair.
Rich, olive skin
and curves like the earth's.
You are built like the earth:
deep, sudden, sloping turns,
dips and dives,
caves and curves like the
shape of the world
and of a swollen heart.
Your complexion is thick and heavy,
like your step and your voice.
Warm and glowing and dark with the sun,
it's a complexion deep as oceans,
one with all the colors of the clay you were crafted from.
And you are rhythm incarnate, music made manifest.
Your every movement appears coreographed.
The breeze has its way with your gestures and your hair
and your living.
You have been wound up by God, girl;
that sway in your hips is His doing.
But this is no ode.
For, Latin Woman, you worry me.
I see you these days,
with foreign blonde stripes in your hair,
on treadmills, worrying yourself sweaty
with thoughts about your skin being a little too dark
and your waist being a little too round.
And I ask you:
Why are you subjecting yourself to a definition of beauty
that is not your own?
Stop trying to look like an American Girl;
american girls are just trying to look european, anyway.
America imported its Ideal Woman years ago,
why are we trying to steal Her from them now?
Let them have their Beautiful;
you are ours, all plump and passionate.
Their concept of aesthetics is not our own.
So take that yellow out of your charcoal hair!
Run your hand down your torso
and smile like it's the contour of the earth that you're caressing.
You are not of this world, Latin Woman.
Yours is a motherland more dirty and grounded
and of decidedly browner tones.
Oh. And for the love of God ...
leave that ass alone.
Good day, good Woman. And yes, that's a capital W.
I hope this finds you well.
A few reminders I thought necessary to share,
for the Goddesses who have been incubated and raised
by the Warmth that hugs the countries south of the burning equator.
Remember that you have been molded and mined
from the earth's melting core.
You are a precious (rolling) stone, Latin Woman.
You are strong,
with layers of leather skin
just beneath your soft exterior.
Layers that house a certain fragility,
buried deep within like Bukowski's bird
in its cage and crying.
You are all beautiful.
You and your black-bean eyes
and your raining hair.
Rich, olive skin
and curves like the earth's.
You are built like the earth:
deep, sudden, sloping turns,
dips and dives,
caves and curves like the
shape of the world
and of a swollen heart.
Your complexion is thick and heavy,
like your step and your voice.
Warm and glowing and dark with the sun,
it's a complexion deep as oceans,
one with all the colors of the clay you were crafted from.
And you are rhythm incarnate, music made manifest.
Your every movement appears coreographed.
The breeze has its way with your gestures and your hair
and your living.
You have been wound up by God, girl;
that sway in your hips is His doing.
But this is no ode.
For, Latin Woman, you worry me.
I see you these days,
with foreign blonde stripes in your hair,
on treadmills, worrying yourself sweaty
with thoughts about your skin being a little too dark
and your waist being a little too round.
And I ask you:
Why are you subjecting yourself to a definition of beauty
that is not your own?
Stop trying to look like an American Girl;
american girls are just trying to look european, anyway.
America imported its Ideal Woman years ago,
why are we trying to steal Her from them now?
Let them have their Beautiful;
you are ours, all plump and passionate.
Their concept of aesthetics is not our own.
So take that yellow out of your charcoal hair!
Run your hand down your torso
and smile like it's the contour of the earth that you're caressing.
You are not of this world, Latin Woman.
Yours is a motherland more dirty and grounded
and of decidedly browner tones.
Oh. And for the love of God ...
leave that ass alone.