Dassit.

So I've decided. I'm getting rid of my colored contacts.

Forreal ma? That ain't yo real eyes? --Nah B. My natural eyes are black, like strong, hot, mean coffee. And they're beautiful.

My life runs by the seasons. I hate routine. I need consistent change or else I get very bored. I don't have a set "style" and I like to try on different things. I've chopped off my hair twice on impulse because I can't bear to always look the same. I don't know how long its been but I started wearing green contacts a few years ago. Not because I didn't like my natural eye color but because I wanted to try something different. I saw it more as an accessory than anything else. I personally liked the way they looked so I ordered prescription lenses and haven't gone back to clear lenses ever since. Every once in awhile, I get asked if those are "my real eyes". I mean, I understand that they're referring to the eye color but it's a stupid fucking question. What the fuck? Do they look like bionic eyes to you? There's really no point in lying so I answer truthfully and say that they're contacts. Usually I get the whole "Oh really, well they look real. Even though it's fake, it still look nice though" and it kind of annoys me. Niggah be real and say you're disappointed. It never really bothered me though until more recently, when I started being asked more frequently and then it got me thinking,

Wait a minute. What's wrong with my natural eye color? 

Green, blue, hazel and pretty much every non-black shade of eye color is seen as beautiful, setting a high standard for ideal facial features, but what if our western conception of beauty is everything that is non-black period? I may be going on a limb here but on behalf of minorities, maybe this is why we hate ourselves. Every time we dye our hair blond or put on a fresh pair of color contacts, maybe there is something inside telling us that we are not beautiful in our own shade; in our own curls. We don't set a definition. We comply to the notion of "white beauty" by unwillingly masking our very distinctions and in the end, when we're standing, carrying every conception of western beauty; barley scratching the standard, we are nothing but imitations. Let me tell you something, that fucking hurts.

Fuck.That.Shit.

My dark eyes are beautiful because they are dark as the tree bark of papa's plantation, because they are dark as the humid-Dominican night sky, because they are dark as a cup of  Bustelo, waking my mother in the morning, because they are dark as the sap that falls out the platanos and dark as they are ripe.