Take back the night
And fold your screams
Into the creases of your lungs
Rid yourself of the darkness
Blackness
There is no radiance in your flesh

Overly pigmented
An abundance of melanin
Brown and Black flesh
Prohibited
Strip your surface
And become colorless
Bleach until you bleed
Porcelain white, light

They want you to become ghostly
Figurines that clone their actions
Speak with their diction
Adapt their vernacular
Black Ebonics is the devil
Is the darkness
Like the black and brown pigment
Light and Lighter are Holy
So strip they say

Trade your tongue for theirs
Assimilate
For purity
To live
A life where your skin has value
Where they will not shed your blood
For proper living

Where they will not lynch your bones
In the backyards of the white hoods
With white masks and holes for eyes
In the streets where the blue suits slay
For fear
They do not see you
Because you've become colorless
For purity
To live
To speak with their diction

Strip they say
Take back the night
Into the creases of your lungs
Where they will never lynch your bones
In the backyard
Where you rid yourself of darkness
Because in your blackness
There is radiance in your flesh