Hello from the other side.

A darker side of life where you are the last brown crayon to be picked in the box.

So you feel worthless
so you start scraping away who you are

until you realize no matter how much you try to draw out a new "race"

you will always be brown.

You don't get it.
You won't get it unless you step into my shoes and get stared at the way that I do.
Hiding from the sun to refrain from getting darker.
Acting "white" to refrain from being called ghetto.

Sharing beds with my sister to refrain from paying more rent

Straightening my hair to refrain from having an afro

Going to college to refrain from being called uneducated
Singing in churches to refrain from going down the wrong path

Not driving alone to refrain from getting killed in the hands of a policeman
Speaking my own poetry to refrain from going unheard

You might not know who I am now

but hello, it's me.

I am a chocolate girl;

priced at only 50 cents a pop
when I should be wrapped in gold.
Constantly being left on the bottom shelf.

Screaming, and crying but no one seems to hear me cry for help.

Why?

Is it because I’m a Negro?

Forms of a word that I must swallow.
Unwanted, black and unattractive;
Words that replace beautiful.

 

I’m so sick and tired of losing this race about race

always having to pick up the pace

history and culture erased

and replaced by the whip and the nae nae

Some of us are even ashamed to say that Africa is our birthplace

So don't you dare ignore that our ancestors were slaves

Our chocolate Melanin underrated for its style and grace

I can't believe whether I get the job

is still determined by the color of my face

even though a black man already ran the United States.

Back into your memory

I need you to trace

let's think back to a case

back to that time when Trayvon Martin got shot in Florida state

When buying skittles and wearing a hoodie was a careless mistake.

While Zimmerman waited on his fate

The streets flooded with pain and hate

Prostesting was the only way

to tell the world to no longer discrimate

Damn.

None of this should've happened in the first place

So don't ask me if my hair is real

And no you can not touch it.
Don't ask me if I listen to rap.
Don't ask me if I play ball.
Don't ask me if my dad left me.

Don't ask me if I'm on welfare.
Don't ask me if I like watermelon or chicken better.
Don't ask me If I was born in Brooklyn.

Don't ask me If I've ever gotten in a fight
Don't ask me

because you probably already think

the answer is yes.

So forget you.
I am not THAT black girl.
I am not ghetto.
I am not a statistic.

I am me.