Betwixt and Between by Angelina Gillispie

These ringlets will never uncoil.

They are tight, fearful, unkempt,

And yet,

They will always be beloved by my hands,

Spoiled with oils and creams of cocoa

Whispers of trickling love embedded within.

I am both night and day,

Moon and sun,

Basking in the hazelnut hue of summer.

I am just like you

Yet I am nothing like you

All in one.

I am divinely me,

Created from the vines of honeysuckle and magic,

Rapturously golden.

I am neither Selene nor Mawu,

Alectrona nor Ilankaka,

I am a mixture,

One of ancestral beauties you will never be able to untangle.

I am this envelopment of beauty,

Droplets of citrine,

Of proudness, passion,

A complexion of radiant trickling dawn,

And yet,

These ringlets will never uncoil. 

Angelina Jasmine Gillispie (she/her/hers) is a passionate, multiracial writer attending the University of New Hampshire. She uses her own personal experiences of trying to navigate what it means to be multiracial in this world as a mechanism for her writing and poetry. She combines her African American, Lebanese, Italian, and French ancestral roots to provide a voice for underrepresented artists and writers. She plans on becoming either an English high school teacher, or English as a Second Language teacher, to inspire and encourage her future students to share their own diverse voices and stories as well.