Behind Brown Windows

Cyan, magenta, burnt sienna and black cover brown lips curled into a smile behind a face mask.

My eyes are kind or so I’ve been told, but I've been painted as an aggressor, a robber, and a criminal before.

If only people took the time to know me as an individual.

I am a father, an artist, a brother, a teacher, but could you believe I could have died before I became either.

I've had a pistol pointed at me by a police officer

I was leaving my home for work, sprinting, can I help you sir?

He had the wrong apartment, my headphones swung back and forth after I realized I was a shooting target

another year a police car drove past

Screeched to a halt, backed up to meet my eyes and clicked on their spotlight.

They followed me all the way down the block before they turned their light away and drove off.

No words, no explanatin, just a sinking feeling of being seen as something I am not.

I am followed through stores regularly, it’s not good customer service

Its what will he steal, so I carry my money openly on purpose.

This is my normal, a life long dance around drama,

move on please, shuffle feet I feel someone is once again following me.

These eyes dark brown like rich soil around seedlings taught kids to express themselves through art to escape the pressure of joining gangs.

These burnt umber pupils hung over text books late into the night to get an education to make change.

These dirt brown eyes bloodshot after losing another friend to pointless violence and again in a retaliation.

Skin Color doesn’t represent character.

Pigment is skin deep, race doesn’t explain everything, the division means envisioning only a portion of what the world has to offer.

Someone’s misconception, passed on through generations so some people can’t see equality only inferiority.

Asian, African, Spanish, Italian, European, a spectrum of cultures, all human beings.

These brown eyes deep in thought, brown pits and I‘m gazing up at a flurry of people walking up and down each street.

Hoping and dreaming that one day we will work to understand each other wholeheartedly.