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[thunderoussymphonies-blog]

To The Ones

This is a message for, just about, all of humanity, here goes. To the men out there who don’t have ‘ragged’ features, who don’t have helium inflated biceps and who don’t look like ‘models’ in everything they wear. You are beautiful. To the women who don’t have ‘bedroom eyes’ and perfect lashes or a head of hair, to the women who may be bald, to the women who aren’t perfectly imperfect who won’t, or can’t, conform to standards. You are beautiful. To the little girls out there who don’t like princesses, who don’t get told ‘how cute you are’ more often than ‘don’t’, who like climbing trees, catching fish and playing ball. You are strong. To the little boys out there who like dolls and fashion, who would rather stay inside and paint than get mucky and dirty out in the backyard, who use their words rather than their fists, who are gentle and kind ‘femenine’. You are brave, you are a trailblazer. To the old men who fought in wars, suffered, and watched comrades, friends, neighbors, and brothers die and now watch on in horror at a burgeoning generation of what may appear to be ‘lunatics’. Don’t give up, we’re coming along, just need to make a few tweaks. To the single mother who wakes up every breaking day to a baby’s wail that ricochets off of flaking walls, who works 12 hours every day, feels something deep in her heart screaming that this isn’t right, this isn’t the fairytale. Not right now, Queen, I know it’s hard right now, but it isn’t over, it is not over until the sun finally rises, you’ll know when it does. To the child whose flesh has know the pummeling of trusted hands, felt the whip slice across skin, cracked by once cradling arms, to the child who cries at night and tiptoes through school with a hope in their heart that dwindles like the dawn, who watches, no doubt, the movies, hears the ‘heartwarming’ stories of other, unlike them, who were rescued, who got away. Safety is on the way. To the father who feels inadequate, who knows how to change a diaper but not how to tie a ponytail, who feels the stares everytime he walks outside, who hears the stereotypes and questions himself, his choices, to the father who absorbs the advice of others “... just get on with your life, hire a nanny, give them back to their mother.” but who looks into the eyes of his baby everyday and says... never. Keep going, keep persevering, keep holding your head high because, soon, and very soon, it will all pay off in the sound of your baby laughing. To the teenage girl who looks down at her stomach in the mirror, taps her skin and pinches her cheeks to try and eke some color into her face, who looks at her eyes and wishes they were different, more stunning, more vivid, more enticing, who watches her friends off at parties and wonders ‘when will my life begin?’. Darling, it already has. You have so much more to offer than a pretty face and perfect body, skin is a package, a body a simple surrounding, it’s what is inside that matters, your beautiful mind, your ‘sexy’ spirit, your ‘seductive’ intellect, what makes you so different from any other person on this planet. To the one who watches on the sidelines, muscles aching to be out there, yet is so tediously confined by a wheelchair, whose arms have grown used to constant pushing of the chair, whose heart will never be accustomed to hearing the whispers and jibes and the bullying and the oppressor, who will never grow accustomed to crying out for help to reach the damned cereal. You are more than you know. You’re so much more than the world is ready for, show yourself worthy, because I know you are.

[thunderoussymphonies-blog]

A Tribute

I am Mulatto and I don’t know what to do. Living in the current world with racial tension so high, and yet kindness and knowledge also on the rise, I am caught between two empires for the first time in my life. I’d never, in my childhood, had an issue with my skin color or how I looked or who my mother and father were, however, suddenly, I am seeing a controversy, a war between Black and White and I’m trapped. I’m trapped in my own unidentifiable, mixed, black coffee with three tablespoons of milk, skin.  Who I am? I am not a black girl, ain’t a white one either. Unlike an Oreo you can’t take me apart and select which piece you prefer, my skin is a mosaic of such tiny pieces of glass you’d shatter me before you could decipher me. Even now ‘yellow’ hands click across a black and white keyboard to release this message. My message. I look at the news and I see brutality and screaming, rage and segregation. My great-great-great grandmother was a slave and yet my other half were descendants of Germany, Ireland, and Israel, another half that fought in World War Two against flesh and blood kin, but my other side knows how to make the perfect solution for cleaning an oak wood floor. Who am I going to choose? Who will I lynch on my fiery stake of choices? Whites or Blacks? Neither.  I’m not going to hurt anyone because if I did I would be choosing a side, I would claiming one and disregarding the other. Shaving off my afro and bleaching my skin, throwing away a thin nose and smaller features in favor of thick lips and a ‘classic look’. But I won’t, I can’t. So I implore you, I beg you to tell me. What do you want of me? What do you want of my peoples? Do you wish for me to garb myself in a white sheet or race through a city with my... half brothers and sisters, do you want me to cheer for one, pale, blonde, blue-eyed side or kneel in bravery on a football field? This is why I cannot pick up my weapons of warfare and just fight like so many others. I must stand, and watch, and when my time comes I will speak. I am confused I am hurt. But, I am power. I am strength. I am Mulatto.