poem: Wax on Wax off

(okay...so when me and my friends compete at poetry competitions in chicago, we constantly feel like people judge us cause we're from evanston and they act like we have nothing to say. so this is what i think about that?"

You look at me, corneas heavily fixated on

black clothes, stud belts, chuck tailors, a silver pentacle, and more rings than I have fingers. Before you even open your mouth your body language

screams in outrage that I look as if I have been white washed by suburbia.

But if I looked at you and judged you based on your consumerist habits called “style”,

could I call you tainted black?

Dipped died in pools of darkness, allowed to believe

spending more money on clothing than your own

educational advancement is perfectly acceptable.

Anybody not like you and black is obviously a freak of nature!

I look in the mirror and laugh at how badly

I once wanted to be the typical black girl.

Desiring to be a person more concerned

with their hair, nail, clothing, purses,

and shoes than anything else in the world.

I wanted to be a god fearing person

preaching the bastardization of Christianity

inflicting intolerance and the promise

of purgatory on all those who held different beliefs.

In the dawn of a new era, however

I have come to realize

what you preach as religion is what I call a theological atrocity

and it’s scarring me how our own people are being

bred generation after generation to inflict oppression

Forgetting that not long ago we were the oppressed.

Despite the series of unfortunate encounters

With people who hold your judgment of black suburban kids

I stand taller than ever before

thanking a goddess that ignorance didn’t get the better of me.

Because what you call style is what I call pathetic

the myths you accept as truth is what I call blissful ignorance,

the black noir you call great reading is what I call unintelligent drivel

Had you not spent all your money on your appearance

as if Snoop Dog is going to sweep you up to be another video ho

you could have bought some Walker, Hurston, Morrison, or Lorde

and invested in something that’s promising versus grossly idiotic!

So you can sit there in your chair and judge me on what you think I am,

but remember no matter how white washed I may appear to be

this Wiccan vegetarian feminist gothic-punk woman of color has been

white washed by suburbia to be your mental superior.