Unknowing Identity

My middle name was kissed onto
my skin by my Nana who
cradled the name for eighty-seven years.
My Nana spoke red, green, and black.
The chain that used to hold the pearls
of my Nana’s neck has been ripped from
her memory, where Pearl connects my middle
name to her first name.

Using my cocoa butter,
melanated skin, I wipe tears from my eyes
as my Nana tried to erase mezclada from fitting
into our name. Abuelita
has an avocado tree that grows in January
but by then she unknowingly already kissed me
goodbye. I’m left with the white butterflies that cry
when I try to deny my comfort in music that
suffocated us with complex harmony and syncopated
Rhythm; jazz was our favorite.

Abuelita’s home, is as sweet as the mazapan that she
takes out of her apron and unwraps, to then feed
it to me as she says, “comer mi hijita.”

And when I sat between Nana’s legs she divided my
Afro into two sections, and little did I know
my identity was braided into one.

Nicole Favors is working to obtain her Bachelor’s Degree at Woodbury University in Professional Writing, as she is currently a Senior. She is a former library intern at the Sims Library of Poetry and is the former Editor-in-Chief of MORIA Literary Magazine. Nicole’s had blogs and book reviews published in the Sims Library of Poetry and Cultural Daily. Her poetry has been published in The Sims Library Of Poetry, The Little Girl on The Swing (2021), and the Young American Poetry Digest, Why I Love Parents (2013). You can find her on Instagram @npfavors.