I know it won't be different

Even when I am older I will need peroxide for my hair.

To look like those sunshine queens

That get everything I give my blood for

For free.

They say it wasn't their fault

That our world is segregated and

They watch films and read books

And they cry along with us.

At the horrors and the tragedies,

The movements and the wars.

But do they not see

Do they not understand that if they lived through these times

They would be at the front lines,

Turning their nose up at me

As they are politically unable to now?

When I was in the first grade

I sat with the others

My dark hair a dead giveaway

For my sad dark thoughts.

She got A's

And I got C's.

But we read the same books

And kept the same mindset

But she had what I did not, and will not, and do not.

Do they not care about the tears? 

The fear they caused me?

Why do I have to show them kindness

When all they have ever showed me is hatred.

I know they are lovely.

They are light and beauty and they make the world spin

Boys fall at their feet,

And wonder how such beauty can exist.

Yet when they look at me

They see nothing of the sort.

Nothing at all.

If you lived back then my girl,

Are you telling me you would think no differently at all?

Somehow this is hard to believe.

And I am angry.

Of course I am angry.

The privileges attributed to something so menial

Let’s them believe that the world is not so bad after all.

They are allowed to do ANYTHING.

They can be kind or rude.

And still have friends and find love and be happy.

She can say whatever she wants to me.

While I have to watch my tongue.

Why did I not talk?

Was I afraid that they would humiliate me once more?

Why does everyone console her

WHILE I SIT HERE

WITH TEARS IN MY EYES AND CUTS THAT ARE DISGUSED

YET NO ONE PAYS ME MIND.

I love my caramel skin.

I love my ethnicity.

I love the blackness of my eyes, of my hair.

Why can't you?