When Beautiful Black Turns To Blue

My Feelings: When will you see me? See us? I can’t stop crying. No matter how righteous I live. No matter how educated I am. No matter how eloquent I speak. No matter how well dressed I am. I can go on and on about how well this, and how well that. Respectability means nothing, and I very well know it. Respectability will never save me from a bullet, and I know it. Nor will it ever shield me from the cruelty of white supremacy. No matter how much of a good human being I am, I’ll always be seen to some folk as an animal. A savage. A gang member. Uneducated. Sub human. A thing to be murdered, and tossed away like garbage, as if my life is worthless. When folk see the color of my skin, they don’t see me. They don’t see us. They see only what they’ve been taught to see and know. It’s America as I’ve grown to understand it. Sad. And I’ll spend the rest of my life fighting against a system that insists on fighting against me.

My heart weeps of sorrow,

In the darkest hour of the night.

Tears are shed inside,

Deep within my soul.

Yet, my tears can be seen and felt.

The weight of an unjust world

Has taken its toll.

It rests upon my shoulders,

And the load is much too heavy.

I’m tired,

As my weakened heart barely beats.

My heartache is too much to stand.

America has been killing me consistently.

A slow death it has been.

No knife to the heart.

No bullet to the dome.

Injustice will be my demise.

Won’t even have time to bid thee farewell.

Another black body blows in the dust.

It’s a sad song about us.

It’s about me.

It’s about you.

It’s what happens when black changes it’s hue.

It’s what happens when beautiful black turns to blue.

See Me

What do you see when you see me?

An intelligent woman whose free?

A poet with a knack for self expression?

A woman with the right to just be?

What song do you hear from my sweet voice?

Do I sing a song of misery?

Do I sing a song so unfamiliar to you?

Do I sing only of what you want to see?

What do you feel when we’re face to face?

Is it fear that enters your mind?

Or yet, an image of a thug or disgust?

If it is, then why can’t you feel my kind?

Even with endless cruelty, my heart still beats.

I walk forward with my head held high.

Walk with a fist in the air that you see as racist.

But I just call it solidarity, self love, and self pride.

What is it that you see within this body?

And why can’t you just see me?