Greyness

I am not black. I am not white.
I exist between the two
I balance on a seesaw
That is heavily weighted
In one direction by society
And by my cultural choices

It didn’t used to bother me
I never lost sleep except
From late nights in green-grass yard
Hanging out with my white friends
I never worried about being stopped
And shot because I fit a description

It shows my privilege
This shelter of suburbia
There is an inability inside of me
To engage with my blackness
What does blackness even mean
To me

I have clear ideas of what blackness
Is, but these ideas are fueled by
Stereotypes, Music and Myths
I can’t trust my brain to speak
Truth about blackness

Am I supposed to feel a certain way?
Talk a certain way? Walk a certain way?
All I am is me, a swirling nova of gray
Amidst a world that want to sort me into
Night or Day.

What right do I have to speak about blackness?
I’m not sure I do. I feel like a house slave sometimes.
Society defines blackness with poverty, drugs, death,
Violence, the streets, death, gangs, death, prison, death
And all I see is what is shown to me, myth or fact
I don’t have the power to tell, I’m no god, I’m no king
I’m no mortal man, maybe I’m just another poser

No better than Al Jolson singing Mammy
No better than the catchers of Kunta Kinte
No better than someone who’s never seen Friday
No better than a poet rhyming a stanza
Because he thinks that is what a black person would say

For me, blackness is alien and unfamiliar
A butterfly brushing my nose in the twilight
But I think it’s a ghost, come to claim my soul
Take me back to the lawns of Suburbia
Where I can be white, supping on a diet of
Privilege, power and ignorance

I don’t know what the point of this was
Maybe to air out some of my anger
Alleviate my tired soul of the guilt
Tap into something different in me

I wonder if my blackness is a dead thing
Just a piece of my life that just sits in the corner
No one mention the corpse or point it out
Just sip the cider and talk about taxes

In shameful moments, I wonder
If my blackness is dead and
Is that such a bad thing