I refuse to be just another statistic,
Just another exotic wonder,
Your excuse to say " oh I love mixed-race babies! "
I will scrub this dirt from my skin,
For if God had made me in his image,
Why am I not pure like him?
" What's your name then? "
Disappointment hits when my name rolls off of their tongues just as easily as their own,
I am mixed, not exotic,
Not your fetish,
You wear our hair,
Hips,
And lips like they belong to you,
Like when people on Instagram call you " cute ",
For taking something that doesn't belong to you.
You treat our culture as something you can just slip in and out of,
Like you are playing dress-up.
" So where are you really from? "
Don't you just mean " why don't you look like me? "
Go on,
Pick me apart like a case study in some desperate attempt to work out why I'm so different,
Not black enough,
Not white enough,
An alien in my own country.