Goldilocks

She didn't tiptoe. She stomped.

Locked the door and hummed sweet sticky syrup over the song she took from us;

the song borne from our pain. 

Our tunes amuse her.

She ransacks our closets, pilfering our precious beads and braids;

We watch her run her fingers through her long blonde birthright. 

Our scalps tingle with the flame of assimilation. 

Pressed, permed, punished for persisting.

She thinks she wants to trade her locks for our crown of thorns. 

Singing sweetly, she paints her face in our vanity, masking porcelain with shade after shade of almond, honey, cinnamon, cocoa, coffee, tar.

Just right. 

We implore: open the door. 

She laughs at our jokes. 

In the kitchen she piles our delicacies high on our largest plate.

Our sustenance is now hers to sniff, bite, cough, judge, discard.

She scrapes the fruits of our labor into the Insinkerator and switches it on.

Whirling metal blades are the final critic.

The legacy of our ancestors is pulpified.

Just right. 

She hikes up her skirts and slips into our softest bed, cradled by her flaxen halo of privilege. 

Our forest is burning. 

She sighs into peaceful sleep, a trail of smouldering footsteps in her wake. 

Just right.