Gray Area

I am not black or white

Because I am not one or the other

I am the girl sitting in the center of the movie theater

Laughing so hard that I shake the room

And your belly quakes with mine

But I am also the wallflower glued to

The corner of the dark bar

Sipping a vodka soda colder than

My empty stare

I am the girl that you can take home to your mother

And share my stories of the varsity dance team

And what gown I wore to prom

But I am also the bad news your mother warned you about;

The girl who smokes when she drinks

And lets you take me in the backseat of your car on our first date

I am black and white

Mixed with confidence and muddled with pride

Tinted with ambition and faded with insecurity

I am the extremes and the in betweens

I am an evenly stirred gray

With equal portions of each

But I am not black or white