Email Poem

Your IP Address: 18.189.3.134

Your Email Address:

To Email Address:

Subject

Personal Note:

Poem Title:

Poem

Never in my life
Would I have ever thought
The things I knew to be so right
Would be so wrong in your eyesight
Chastised by my own kind for what you thought to be blatant lies
And my true ethnicity of which you felt I disguised
When you first saw my black face under the light
But then heard me speak
And declared me white
Stating I was no longer permitted a dog in this fight
Who I am, you believed to be some form of malpractice
But the fact is
My speech does not qualify my blackness
I am educated, intelligent, articulate, prophetic
And unapologetic
To you
Or any other man of this color
Sister or brother
Who based upon what’s “trending”
Can feel obliged to play God and decide what I’m intending
Then see fit to call me Tom
And proclaim my ways to be condescending
What I have to offer should be seen so plainly
And viewed as substantial making you proud to claim me
You wonder how someone who comes from where I’ve come
Can identify with your struggle? In my attirement?
You know neither me nor what I’ve had to push through
In a place where there weren’t many like me or you
And I would have never thought to deny you
In fact
I embraced you with pride and admiration
Even more so for your environment
And all that you’ve had to endure
And now
As if being in this skin isn’t hard enough
Now even you hate me
And now it’s a must
That I justify myself to both them and us
And why I feel that I have earned the right
To sit on what I thought was my own bus
While now even you degrade me
And you wonder why they still laugh at us?
Think about why that sounds so crazy
Now look me in the eyes
And tell me you still hate me

Copyright © 2013 by Daryl R. Gaines. All rights reserved

CAPTCHA Preview

Type the characters you see in the picture

Required