Black, why do you keep calling me that?
Don’t you see the way my curly hair bounces, all natural, all mine.
Or how it goes from curly to straight to curly again in a snap?
Black why do you keep referring to me as that?
No fried food, no hood, no trap.
No cursing, always positive, never mad.
Really, Black?
Cops are nice, thieves are bad,
Don’t even lower your sight
To would be good looking in another life corner guys
Who chose to sell that and get money fast for the Jordans that won’t feed them instead of going to class.
Black, you say it again,
This time I’m curious,
Because I don’t understand.
I explained the slave trade,
How black and white made brown and not grey.
Make sure to throw one or two Taino words,
To see if you get my point.
To which you respond- yes, that’s what I meant by Black.
I start to give up and just go with the flow,
I might as well play along.
While we are at this Irish Pub,
And all I could think is how I rather be at a club dancing to the fast beat of drums.
Wait, where did the drums come from?
As published in Ritmo Que Late: An Anthology of Submissions during 2018 NAPOWRIMO by DWA Press.
Available for purchase at DWAPress.com