Spots of blinding light glance off the river
Reflecting apollo's fiery descent
From the west enrobed in smoky silver
Luna begins to carefully ascend

She whistles violet purple black and blue
To chase her brother's chariot away
Painting the world a sparkling darker hue
She unfolds glist'ning night as if to say:

It is I the giver of the earth's rest
That you with little faith have letted fear
And spurred yourselves with stories un-celeste:
Lies from my brothers mouth and to your ear.
This hour go out and put the truth to test!

In dark alone the soul will find repose
A tune of cosmic peace does black compose.

are we really woke as much as we all claim to be?
or are we woke to ease our minds, which ain't reality?

of course we've signaled heavy change, i won't deny that's true
but let me have your ear for now, give you another view

are you really woke because you post a rant on twitter,
but bop to Chris Brown's music even tho we know he hit her?

are you really woke cause you were born into the slums,
but if you make it out,
you forget where you are from?

are you really woke because you claim to love black hair?
but only like the softer textures, is that really fair?

are you really woke 'cause you admire that 4c?
but put down girls who have relaxers, wigs, or wear a weave?

are you really woke because you claim to love all people,
but if ya boy is gay you will denounce him at the steeple?

are you really woke because you say you know what's right,
but ostracize your fellow blacks,
simply cause "they talk white?"

are you really woke because you claim to love all colors,
but date a darker women? yikes! you'd rather find another

are you really woke because you claim you've got insight,
but if i am depressed, you say that mess is for the whites?

i bring up all these issues not because i hate my own

i bring up all these issues just because they're never shown

and if we are to grow and prosper,
thrive and shed our past,
we need to have these conversations,

                                                 ­                                make sure that they last

I was strong,
But not for very long.
They kept putting me down,
And I kept giving them a frown.

It wasn't my mistake.

I was brown
And they kept putting me down..

Wishing to get attention like the fair ones,
I kept slapping myself with powder buns.
Hating them was not my job,
But loving them was a little odd.

My heart was clean,
But they were really mean.
They kept putting me down,
Just because I was brown.

I tried fitting in with them but was told my skin was to dark and that I was not the type.
I asked a darker crowd for companionship but was denied because I was told I talk white.
In reality they ment proper but I cannot hate my own people for what they don't know.
In a country where a letter from Willie Lynch divided us and still stunts our growth.

We were deprived of our name, religion, and planted an idea in our head that lighter is better.
Features once  seen as a sign of ugliness such as big lip or now being imitated and make others jealous.
These life scars remain though, that rain from feeling left out seemed to only get wetter.
Hoping one day this alienated feeling will dry up but one can only be zealous.

ebony colored skin and chocolate eyes
hair like spirals and coils dripping down
a face so sculpted it seemed crafted by the gods themselves
her hips spread and attached to a thin waist
and lipids gathered in thick bunches below them

she eyes her features in a mirror and grows in a sense of loss
an innaccurate feeling, but she gets it anyway
why?

when she was 5 years old she went to school
with her hair out of braids, curls voluted
she was ecstatic to share it with her friends
but, they just laughed and pointed
and her teacher scolded her
and tried to tame it down with vicious twists

when she was 11 years old she went to school excited
she was ecstatic to see the boy with ivory skin that she liked
but, he whispered about her
and a girl told her that he didnt like her
because she was too “black”

on her 17th birthday she gathered up all of her courage
and stood up for herself

when another girl with eggshell colored skin
told her that she was inferior
and belonged as a slave
and people told her to stop overreacting
and her teacher kicked her out for being violent

so she went home
let a stream of tears loose
and finally told herself that they were all right
she lost every shred of self worth

that’s why.

when i was younger, this boy used to tease me about my skin color;
how much it resembles coal,
and how it makes me look like an Aeta,
and how they can't see me in the dark,
but even before that i was insecure.
because when people bothered to look at me,
they'd only see ebony
and to them it was synonymous with ugly and *****.

but i don't blame them.

they're just caught in the current of colonialism
when we measured one’s status through the hue of their skin
and we followed.
we followed their discrimination of the ones whose skin didn't look like the exact duplicate of ivory and marshmallow.
we followed their system of supremacy of putting the lighter ones up in the stars to match whiteness with brightness.
we followed their standards of beauty which just happened to be the exact ******* opposite of our majority.

now our country is driven mad
by the idea of whitening your skin
until your heritage is nowhere to be seen;  
it has been scrubbed off by papaya soap,
masked by glutathione
and devalued by insults.
but hey,
who cares about heritage if you look like that European actress?
who cares about culture when you could pass off as an American?
who cares about natural brown when synthetic white wears the crown?