be careful
don't speak too loudly
keep your sentences clipped.
short and sweet
is the way to go.
conflict is terrifying
it makes your body go numb
causes the gears in your head to rust
all of your thoughts come to an
ugly
screeching
halt.
go quiet.
it was just a joke.
why can't you be in on it?
just force a laugh out of your lungs,
oil the corner of your lips so they can
twist
into an involuntary smile.
why can't you be like the other people?
your pain doesn't matter
your suffering
doesn't need to be brought up every second.
give into the hilarious stereotypes that haunt you
every time you get looks on the train
or when security follows you in a store
or when someone like you is shot
or murdered
or *****.
don't be such a square.
just
laugh about it.

white hands are magnetically attracted to my tresses
the way they bounce when i'm running to the bus stop
how it curls from the top to the bottom.
when i tell people what i am
they nod and say,
"no wonder you have that hair."
i wake up in the morning conscious of my existence
the whiteness of my father's father is not present in my skin
but it is there in the way i talk on the phone,
"ain't" and "finna" tucked neatly into the corners of my teeth.
when my boss sees me for the first time in person,
they will part their mouth slightly and say,
"you're so unique."
the latinos at school are lighter than me
their hair is straighter than mine
and their spanish is much more polished.
when they heard my first grammar mistake
they frowned and said,
"oh great, another ******* coconut."
i will die an oxymoron, a paradox
a cultural clusterfuck who doesn't know what a border is.
i will die undefined, unknown, as a variable in a math problem
written by the hands of a white man
who thought everything could be solved
if it was done his way.