"skintones" poems
“i am a pen
with a bullet in the
chamber”
—
i am a black boy
burning a book
about history
i am a black boy
painting new colors
on a flag —
it didn’t match
my shoes, red’s and whites
only remind me bloods and angels
I don’t know how to pray to, and I
don’t believe in that
purple predecessor.
i am a spectrum of sunkissed
skintones, calloused and weathered
and stress-tested
those of us who survive the firing squad
are fileted, and
skinned, and worn
they say, the first man who wears
a ******* skin, inherits his
rhythm. and the blues he spent so long
running away from will lay
by his headstone.
Sep 3, 2014
Sep 3, 2014 at 1:37 PM UTC
steamy mochas topped with foam,
lattes with caramel, chocolate, and hazelnut.
soaking up the shades of brown-
the walls, skintones, all within doors shut.
i let the scents of coffee beans and tea leaves
fill up my senses- breath drawn in deep-
released like soft wind against the trees.
the fumes, i could take in; this place in which i could fall asleep.
Sep 27, 2013
Sep 27, 2013 at 12:20 PM UTC
Like a box of crayons,
We come in many shades, and
in many different colors,
Shades and skintones, we
Precede one another.
We have the reds, and
the Oranges galore,
and the rest of the colors,
that we certainly do adore.
We are like crayons,
We start off as perfect, but
When we're worned down,
We are tattered and broken,
We are still useful, although
our essence had faded,
We're used less and less, and
We start to feel degraded,
We are like these crayons,
We are still around, but
Our purpose becomes useless,
as we are dwindling on down!!!
B.R.
Date: 11/9/2024
Nov 10, 2024
Nov 10, 2024 at 10:48 AM UTC
How can I make these whites as uncomfortable as they make me?
Comparing skintones during the summer like there's anything to compare to, y'all just wanna brag about how brown y'all like to get without having to live like a *****
Some masturbatory self **** too pretentious to go to a tanning booth, but too cheap to treat ya skin right,
Y'all know that sunscreen is a must, but all I can think about when I go to the beach is tomato soup.
Y'all are the real red skins, but still dare to call yourself dark when y'all don't know what shade is. I can sit under an umbrella with long sleeves all day and still be brown by the time Autumn dries out the Summer leaves, I know y'all can't say the same.
Does it make you uncomfortable that I can other y'all?
White folk. Cracka. ***** Yall think that those are slurs? Where's the censor on TV then? Where's the national outrage? There isn't! But then when it comes to ***** oh then that's everybody's word. Like how ****** used to be everybody's word. Like how between ya ma-n-pops, they talk about how violent we ******* is... And y'all just listen... Complacent or uncaring, but still daring to say you're different.
Cut from a different cloth, you people got some nerve. And yes, you people, as in you white folk. Y'all better collect y'all's trash, like how incarcerated ****** collect it off the side of busy roads for free cos slavery never ended as neatly as y'all think it did.
Will y'all ever be uncomfortable over the right things?
Over black children being set up to go to prison from the moment they enter school because teachers give them more suspensions and detentions than anyone else?
That the FBI was found guilty of murdering Martin Luther King and has harassed him til he was shot?
That Lincoln never really cared about us ******* just wanted to win the war and ******* the south, no matter who suffered the most?
My fellow Americans, white that is, because in the census you're accepted as an American without question,
Y'all don't know the meaning of discomfort.
Aug 24, 2018
Aug 24, 2018 at 12:34 AM UTC