A Love Letter to Black Girls
Posted by Justin Reilly | Filed under '08 Fall: Notes from Underground, Poetry, Print, Show Poems
So I date black girls..
and everyone who falls in between ebony & ivory
I love hair Straight, wavy, and curly like Ivy
I guess you could say im a dog
because im color blind like Lasey
and where i’m from
we bark at anythang
with parashaped hips
and that ‘mmm Oh Jesus’ flavor of lip gloss on your lips
we would spend hours
quoting old Biggie tracks
and working on punch lines
just waiting for school to let out
but here
I’m supposed to have a type
5′7”
blond hair
blue eyes
can’t dance
doesn’t eat
oh and she thinks my poetry is ‘nice’
shed rather drink than talk
gossip than walk
and she cant chew gum and do either
I Ken
She Barbie
commanding the road on the way to the playhouse
but i never played with dolls when i was a kid
based on these hives
i think I’m allergic to plastic
and I used to write for hours
about that ebony girl who sat in from of me
outlining her curls
with 5th grade metaphors
and naïve
sentence structure
you see white kids
are supposed to sit in the front of the class
but I gotta tell ya
‘the back of her head was ridiculous’
and I just enjoyed the smell of her hair
somehow
I knew all that scribbling would pay off
you see I learned at an early age
that coloring in between the lines
was only taught
to hinder my creativity
I never found comfort
In coloring books
Etching conformity into my veins
Just so miss Jones wouldn’t
Check my pulse
I would flat line in art class
I guess I thought
It was just a waste of my time
Assigning names and colors
Like Adam
But this is no Eden
b/c clearly Eve was
a feminine mirror image of her husband
and that just doesn’t work for us
they wouldn’t even dare
to crucify us
side by side
on the same color wheel
fearing we might bleed together
and I hate to break it to you
but Jesus didn’t look like me
laying helpless
hoping you stain my hands
watching colorless
blood cells drip
to count hours instead of sands
I just wish I could freeze time
We are in a black n white film
Mouthing affection
Smiling as the wind blows
Wishfully hoping for the depression to end
Living in speak-easy dreams
Drinking red wine in prohibition
And playing charades
With our words
We were rebels
Even in a time
When we knew boundaries
Were the difference between life or death
You could find us laying in the graveyard
Mean mugging the stars
And cursing the gods
For not making us the same
Sadly we were only
comforted
when the sun and moon made love
Even though we were told
Wed go blind
If we looked directly into
The eclipsed moonlight
They were worried we might
Find enlightenment in the stars
We would color in our existence
And try to paint our love
within a tattered stencil
Trying hard to be different
And wish
We could roll around in the mix
Just long enough
To let the paint dry
And I feel like an artist
With no brush
Desperately trying to finger paint a
Tragedy in the dust
You will never be able to color in our ashes
You see
There’s no right way
To color
And no right way
To kiss you in public
Because its too much for them to stomach
So here
Is sum Pepto-Bismol
To easy ur fears
gargle ur bigotry
spit out your sickness
because I don’t have time
to worry about your insecurities
I have a master piece to finish
2 Responses to “A Love Letter to Black Girls”
-
Victoria Joseph Says:
June 21st, 2009 at 11:57 pm“that coloring in between the lines
was only taught
to hinder my creativity” is my absolute favorite part… -
jchowell03 Says:
November 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 pmWhen we knew boundaries
Were the difference between life or death
You could find us laying in the graveyard
Mean mugging the stars
And cursing the gods
For not making us the samehottttt
