What is Black?

What is black?

Is it the curve of my black hips?

Or the plumpness of my black lips?

Is it the kink of my black hair?

Or the fullness of my black derièrre?

Are you black?

Please tell me, I’m confused.

What was once simply a complexion

Is now scandalous and overused.

There’s a price one pays

For displaying their melanin

“Can’t be too black in this crowd otherwise I won’t fit in”

And, if I use proper lexicon and eloquent vocabulary

Then I’m being extra, an Oreo with her values blurried.

But why can’t I just be me?

The black girl from the suburbs,

That can switch from Ed Sheeran to Run DMC

In a heartbeat.

Without paying attention

To the perception of me in the street.

I’m an anomaly.

A white wannabe.

You say in so many words I’m too much.

But I translate your too much into more than enough.

No, scratch that more than more than enough

I surpass sufficiency

In fact, I’m the best at being me.

So, I don’t need to fill your expectations.

All linked to the activation

Of traits that I’ll never have

I’m not black?

How dare you judge my badge of honor?

My brand of black surpasses anything superficial.

My culture and history has been woven into a web that’s so special.

I feel the Obamas and the Underground Railroad,

I am The Little Rock 9 and Gabby Douglas.

And still you may ask,

“What is Black?”

To explain it would devalue the concept.

 

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