B L A C K / iridescence.

I.

You are black.

You dance at all the parties,

you are restless,

you want to do it all.

Your house burns with poetry;

And your soul extinguishes like the sunset--

quietly, charmingly; melancholy.

Your biggest flaw is how much you think.

You’re too thoughtful;

too sensible--

you like the taste of lemonade

and listen to rap to escape.

You let your friends compliment you,

but you're terrible at believing them.

When they leave you, you cannot recognize yourself.

You are black--

I don’t want you to be ashamed of yourself;

your sensitivity is not a curse.

Stop hiding your true side; it is more beautiful than theirs.

Black; listen to me--

You have an unimaginably beautiful heart.

Don’t hide that because everybody else isn’t like

You.

You're black and your friends make you laugh more than anyone else ever could.

You're complex in the simplest way.

Protect black.

Be black.

Be who you are.

You don’t have to be like them;

especially when you’re so fucking special like that.

II.

I am iridescence;

I am--

the transient soap bubbles while washing the dishes, Arke's ailerons and butterfly wings.

Passionate opalescence burning underneath skin tempering black fire.

I am--

Iris Carrying the Water of the River Styx to Olympus for the Gods to Swear By and seashells reflecting the sky.

He calls me, Black.

My colors, he presumes, are hiding behind the absence of light,

behind words he thinks are not my own.

He calls me, Black.

And I answer;

I can be Black;

adapt and change form in darkness,

seven shades of spectral saturation

startled spirit; stunning, striking--

stunted.

Black dirt fostering rebirth from scorched earth

pitch fire burning in my black throat from holding back

these jagged obsidian thoughts.

I can be the shadowed twilight on a cloudless night

with no stars left and no moonlight;

the dark expanse as you fear to shut your eyes.

Yes; I can wear Black as my disguise.

But to presume Black,

to be my only color would be unwise.

We are all mirrored mosaics of our beloveds;

whether in spirit or in blood;

refracting sunshine beneath our skin and

it is love.

/

Garinagu labarum;

sun thwacking down on

ivory drumskins

and kicked dirt from blackened dancing feet.

My mother truly dances at every party;

my black does not join her within the punta circle

and the drums rhythmic tattoo.

Instead, I call upon my ancestors, alone in my room

endeavoring to mimic my mother's moves--

hoping the heritage upon my hip does

not resemble costume.

Mommy says,

'I can book punta classes for you.'

And She's thinking of me;

me;

the girl who can't dance tradition, even when I try,

who yearns to dance by her mother's side.

Away from the clamouring complimentary collegiality; it is not difficult to recognize my heartbeat as three,

My mother, my brother and me.

Here;

is where my iridescence gleams;

you see; my black is not ever alone.

And its light belongs to We.

So this pensive mind; I say is no flaw.

Without it I could not call me, we or me, at all.

Would you allow sentiments this sacred

to be used so quickly and underestimated?

I am--

kaleidoscopic petroleum, prismatic pragmatism;

Chronic chromatic nihilism and over optimism.

Black Goniochromism;

unshackled from an achromatic prison.