The world looks at me with misplaced indignation and infuriatingly rigid constructs

 

Seemingly indestructible like the bonds that first brought us here and kept us together, but invisible, just as taxing, don’t tell me to start relaxing

 

This is all I’m asking: stop playin’ like I don’t know how you judge us

 

Actually, I’m not a thief

 

But you follow me anyway so my insistence doesn’t matter

 

My integrity and self-consciousness simultaneously plummet to the floor

 

No, I can’t dance like some of the sistas in the rap videos but I’ve cut a rug or two and I feel no less secure because of it, you see, I am more

 

Yes, I glimpse racism in everyday life

 

No, there’s nothing wrong with my eyes ‘cause I feel past the lies

 

It drives me mad, this disguise of false respect and loaded ‘Hi’s’

 

It isn’t merely that my eyes fabricate the hatred and ignorance in my surroundings but because it is there

 

No, I’m not perpetually angry and loud, but I want to retort that there are plentiful reasons if people made themselves aware.

 

My spirit yearns for more than this

 

I am not a notch in your belt of ethnic women

 

I am not the one to step to if you think you’re cool enough to be “waved in”

 

I am worthy of a relationship and not just good for mating

 

I am the “bane” of the world so don’t tell me ‘Stop hating’

 

I am the daughter of queens whose heads sat high atop their shoulders even as empires fell and shackles bound their feet

 

I am one of a nation of many, and none of we are exactly alike

 

Our beauty and pride stems from this vine of diversity

 

We are each a rare desert flower waiting to blossom forth unto the world

 

Roses evolved prickles so that man could not covet their loveliness.

 

So if you were wondering why some of us wear thorns, be they small or bigger

 

 “If ya don’t know…now you know.