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My being is sliced by a man made fault line
Splitting my identity like water and oil
You say that being a certain way makes you less of who you are
Yet you don’t understand that blackness is not for consumption

Our bodies aren’t for your fantasies
Our culture isn’t for your aesthetics
Our existence shouldn’t be your opposition
Your beliefs spawning unnecessary tension

You say the only way I can be a man is through masculinity
When femininity is more comforting to me
You say talking about LGBTQ history causes children to be gay
Meanwhile I spent all my life getting forced to be straight

Growing up black gave me challenges to face
Challenges that caused leftover trauma which I am still trying to erase
Even when I tried walking at my own pace
I still ended up in a place

A place full of darkness and question
A landscape built out of self doubt and deception
Even the willow trees wept with unresolved sorrows
And the rivers ran gray with apathetic sludge

Red eyes of damnation crept in the bushes of lies
Clouds of desperation rained drops of dissociation
Stuck in this cursed watershed of modge podge ignorance and devastation

When I look back I remember
Being stuck in the quicksand that is comparison
Every time i’d look up,
The sky was so dark, even the light at the end of the tunnel hid under it’s sheets

And yet here I stand today
Somewhere where the sun comes out and shines down rays
yellows replacing dark blacks and grays

I am out of that place.
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© Rynne