Margins

Here is what it means.

When my sister was born

they put her in the margins.

They told her

what color was her color

without looking into her eyes

to see every light-spectrum color there

in a pattern that was all her own.

She has spent decades

coloring outside the lines

that they tried to give her

when they said

“This is a man’s world,

and you are no man.”

And me.

I have walked through

my own garage under

the heavy stare of a man

who was there to fix the air

conditioning,

when I was 16 years old

and didn’t know

what he was thinking

about my teenage legs.

And if I could

walk past him again,

I would start reciting

Shakespeare at the top of my lungs

just to show him

how much godhood these two legs

are actually holding up.

My friends,

when the magazines

tell you what position

will give you power

they are telling you

to try to change the world

from the margins.

But you,

you don’t belong

in the margins.

So when they say

don’t show your legs

and when they say

try this position

and when they say

this is your color

you tell them

that you are a prism

of light,

and that you’ll be coloring outside the lines.