It's okay, they said
as if it were a sorry mistake Mother Nature had at the canvas
sculpting, painting in perfection, until the final layer
revealed not peach but mustard yellow.

It's okay, they said like forgiveness
like I had been born with two Original Sins
as opposed to their one
the mustard-yellow veil covering my body
cracked, twisted, suffocated by the words in their mouths.

It's not your fault, they said
that my mother tongue
the words
the sounds
that rocked me to sleep when I was born
sound like birds talking with hard stones in their mouths
sound like mustard pans falling from the sky,
hitting the hard, white asphalt they laid down.

It isn't my fault
that you cannot see substance beneath the final layer of paint
to see
Gold underneath the veil that you created.
Too deafened by the imaginary pans to hear canaries
Too ignorant to erase the lines you drew on your white asphalt
The line that divides
Me
You
is imaginary mustard yellow.