In New York, I feel naked without eyeliner. I wear fake glasses during my distance learning classes, and sunglasses when I go for walks. It is brief, but necessary. The trueness of my color belongs only to me.
My partner asks me why I am so beautiful. I can never answer her, though I know it is love.
The spots around my eyes expand again, paling the prickling of my eyebrows. I ask what this is, and the new doctor tells me it’s stress – it could be, because my brother died, and that is stress-inducing, and might I like to participate in an experiment?
When my brother dies, I search for ways to preserve his memory. I reflect on his life and I realize that I have nothing but silence. I decide to embed his initials on my skin.
I meet my partner at a bar crawl. I wear a revealing Santa outfit that accentuates my cleavage. It is dark when we kiss on the streets, but even in the light of the wine bar, I do not change.
During karate, I hesitate the first day. My patchy, ashy feet have always been ugly to me, and I don’t have the language to tell my students. The second day, I realize I am too old to be shy. I shed my socks and wear the dougi. “Sensei, you’re so cool,” my students say.
A man from the Navy base tries to flirt with me. He says he wishes he were unique, and brown, and beautiful, and wishes he had it, too. I tell him I am a lesbian. His friend asks whether I am Indian or Arab.
A patch comes back on my face, so I study herbal remedies. I order mustard oil from Amazon Japan. I mix it with turmeric and apply the paste to my face. It smells and burns, and I cry. It is washed off immediately.
When I move to Japan, I learn that one does not point out the abnormalities of another’s appearance. No one asks me anything.
I come out to my brother. He tells me he knows. He has always known.
My Puerto Rican American friend calls herself brown. She frets over the lightness and privileges of her skin. She tries to hold onto the things that allow her to feel connected. I become angry before I learn that brownness is vast and belongs to her too, and even to me, who desperately tries to keep it.
A friend is shocked to learn that I am not biracial. I tell her my parents are from the Caribbean. She hesitates, and tells me she thought my father was white.
I get another tattoo. It is large and captures the subtleties that lie in the declarations of love in Japanese. It writes, “Isn’t the moon beautiful?” The artist asks me if I made it up. I tell him it belongs to an author. The dotted white patches create a crater for the moon.
My mother brings back a mixture of powder, which she calls “dirt.” It works, she tells me. Her neighbor in Chaguanas endorses it. I mix it with water, and spit it out when she isn’t looking.
Curious to reveal a spotty scalp, I shave my head. To my surprise, it is brown. The customers at the bookstore ask me if I have cancer.
I stand naked in front of her. She smiles at me from the bed.
The girl I am sleeping with tries to hold my hand in public, but I swat it away. The men in my neighborhood call her “snowflake” from their cars.
The first girl I sleep with is white and blonde, with sharp blue eyes. She comes from Washington, a place I have never known. It is nice to be wanted, but she scares me with her eyes, so we keep the lights off the entire time.
Mother begins to cook her curries with celery. It works, she says.
I stop going to laser therapy. I am tired of spending my Tuesdays in a doctor’s office.
During treatment, each area of my skin is gently pushed by a small device connected to a large machine. The doctor asks me if it hurts. I say no.
In college, I become a new person. I wear bright colors and stripes, and pride myself in my proclaimed eccentricity.
I am her five-year project, my doctor says.
My doctor introduces me to laser therapy. It focuses entirely on the infected areas, saving me from most of the radiation and heat. My imperfect tones begin to merge into one.
The spots next to my mouth disappear. The treatments become intense and I become a much darker shade of brown than I had ever been. But the white diminishes. I am happy.
My first period happens during one of my treatments. The nurse laughs. I feel strange.
My mother meets me after school twice a week. We take the E train from Jamaica to Manhattan. She sleeps for her night shift as we wait to be called.
I look at the mirror and see my face. The once little white spot now envelops and surrounds my eyes. There are two spots next to each side of my mouth and on my forehead. My cousin tells me I look like a clown.
They give me free cosmetics, but I throw them in the trash. My mother gets angry.
My doctor asks me to attend a conference and uses me as an example for her progression on treatments. A spokesperson from a cosmetic company uses me to demonstrate how effectively their products work. The white disappears and my skin becomes a singular tone. My mother is ecstatic and people bombard me with questions. They applaud my struggle.
I begin high school. I stop noticing the stares.
I cover my white walls with posters and markings.
I leave school early to attend treatments. As I shut the classroom door, I hear my teacher express his sympathy to the class. I never liked him.
I fight with my brother. He calls me ugly. I cry and my mother scolds him.
I still apply the ointments and creams. A kid calls me Michael Jackson. I like his music, I say.
My friends ask me what is wrong with me. The invites to soca parties stop.
I get sunburn on the white. It turns bright red and burns and itches.
I strip naked and wear a thin cloth robe. It feels cold. I walk into the booth and stand on a stool and close my eyes. Heat consumes my body for thirty seconds. The nurse stops the machine and hands me goggles. I feel like I am under water.
My mother finds a dermatologist in Manhattan and books an appointment. She sets me up for UV therapy treatments twice weekly.
The white spreads. It spreads to my hands and my legs and my chest and my ass and my vagina and my insides.
There are no solutions in Queens, I realize.
The white doesn’t go away.
I try creams, ointments, teas, herbs, and nauseating concoctions that make me vomit before school. I try coconut butter and oils and more creams.
My mother brings back shea butter from Trinidad. She tells me that it will work this time. It is scentless and greasy, and doesn’t work.
White, I think. White, like albino. White, like snow. White, like the walls in my room. I hate the color.
We visit my father. My mother asks him if this runs in his family. It doesn’t, he tells her. This belongs to you.
My grandmother tells me that Allah has made me this way, that I must not try to change what He has decided. My mother suggests treatment in Trinidad.
The dermatologist tells me that I have a skin condition that makes my body lose pigmentation.
My mother takes me to the grocery store. A Guyanese woman stops her. She asks my mother how could she let me get burned so badly. My mother says nothing, and we leave. I can see the tightness in her jaw.
I notice white patches scattered on my legs and my eyelids. I go to my mother. We visit a doctor and they refer us to a dermatologist.
I visit the doctor for a checkup. I notice a tiny spot on my left eyelid and inquire. I am told it is a side effect from allergies.
My classmates call me pretty and compliment my soft skin.
When I am 5 years old, I want to be white.
Author Biography
Cassandra Fegert is an Indo-Caribbean American writer and high school teacher from Queens, New York. Her interests include queer studies, Caribbean diasporic studies, fanfiction, and teaching as the practice of freedom. She’s currently figuring out how to document her family history while authentically capturing the spirit of her ancestors.