If the stars did die
I wouldn't mind
If my eyes went blind
I couldn't find

Strolling the darkness
With souls like yours
Hearing the whisper
That binds us further

But
If the stars are bright
I'm grateful
If I can see light
I'm aware
If I can hear voice
I'm at ease

Sometimes, I am in love with myself.
I force them to witness my love for my melanin
because they would love for me to hate my melanin.
I know that I am seen, but I want to be heard, 
The first amendment allows me to speak, but they refused to hear a word-
that comes from my mouth.
My lips stereotyped as too black.
My diction too proper to act like this,
yet my slang is too ghetto to act like that...
Sometimes, I wonder what it's like to be white.
I hate being stared at when I speak in Spanish.
I never know if it's in disgust or in comfort, 
because the sound of the double "r" rolling off of my tongue
sounds like the ricochet of the bullets they fire from their guns.
Since they no longer can enslave us like animals, they slaughter us
because, "if I can't have you no one can."
I refuse to be put down.
I refuse to shutdown.
My brown skin threatens,
and you all should be afraid.
Because I will banish your negativity with my Latin American flow,
speaking in Spanish with the Bachata tempo filling my veins.
My Ebonics is iconic, 
and I refuse to be put in a box when the world is a sphere.

I... am more... than this.

As I sat and pondered on how to write my next poem,
I witnessed an insect trying to fit into a space it was too big for.
I watched as the insect twisted and turned with determination to try and make the impossible possible, and it made me wonder:
How many opportunities have I missed because I mistook cannots for would nots?
I wallowed in the fear of what could happen, my pessimistic tendencies taking over,
(because I have loved and lost and I wish I had never loved at all)
so maybe the situation I am in is my fault.
Maybe it is genuinely not you, but it's me because you are the small space and unlike the insect I did not twist and turn
even though you are worth it.

I will auto correct myself, if you promise to do the same.