How dare you look at me while I’m in your presence?

How dare you lay your eyes on me and judge me by anything else but my JET black skin and ESSENCE?

I’m sorry, but are you reckless?

Like do you have some sort of death wish or are you one of those who wear those roseless, colorless things over your eyes that you claim are “politically corrected?”

I wish we had more than poetic justice

We ain’t never experienced the same happy every after

I wish we had more than candy covered rain drops and a angry fist full of rappers

Black body bags littering the streets and a mockery of those who admit we matter

Tell me when I could wake up in a world where history is not manipulated to fit ones agenda

Where the past isn’t ignored and people don’t lay in their beds at night trying to figure out how in the hell did we get here?

Where silence and straight hair is no longer my way to a meal ticket?

Like when can I wake up to a place where I can scold my son when he calls me and tells me “Mom, I was driving a little too fast” got pulled over and actually got a real ticket?

A world where he doesn’t feel different

Even though his skin flirts with the sun a little more than most

And his hair is constantly dancing to a beat of its own

A place where folks could see him and think of their child at home

Where when he is young he isn’t deemed so grown

A place where dreams aren’t just rhetoric tossed from a podium to the weary

Where confidence is built because of school instead of jail cells

A place where I can see me in a character or on TV

I know that one day… I can be me

Without being too little or too much

A place where I can be judged by the content of my character and not just all my stuff

Cause we all have stuff

And we all need grace

And I can give it to you because of the one who gave me this face

And this place

And this skin

And my hair…

Photo by Kenex Media sa on Pexels.com