Journal

Drei

I'm not a poet nor am I a lyricist or a creative at heart. I write when I'm overly emotional and splurge whatever's left of my heart and intentions into pieces of technology that never leave my side.

Sometimes, I'm embarrassed by the amount of time I spend staring into a screen. It used to be an escape to a foreign place, far from the monolith of home. Now it's an escape to a familiar place, far from the constricted freedom of my escape. And it's the irony of yearning for something so much and basing so much of my life and personality around it, to wanting the years to fly by and waiting for the next chapter of my life.

I find myself trying to be something I can't be. I compare and I try to measure up to people who aren't in the same field as I am. Not because we're on different levels or because we're on different wavelengths. Or Maybe it is? Is because I know that they've gone through things I'm both envious and sympathetic towards? But we're in different fields, farming and cultivating different produce that will ultimately yield different ways of life.

I want to be a version of myself that's free of self doubt and guilt. I want to be proud and loud. I want to be able to appreciate the present and not think of the how I was or who I will be. I just want to be but at every corner I find new ways to hide parts of myself or conform to my surroundings because I never knew what it was like to unapologetically be myself.

I've never had this fear of going out. Spongy, spirally, black hair awe inspiring as I walk, contrasting the silky straight hair surrounding me. I've never felt so bothered by the prospect of existing. But in such homogenous conditions of various colours of beige, mocha brown and deep olives are naked to an unseeing eye.

I've never felt this many eyes on me. Walking and feeling the stares, meeting their eyes and seeing their unblinking gaze. Children were the most tolerable, unbridled fascination expressed with wide eyes and open mouths, it was almost adorable.

I've never been this irritated. The lack of education, the lack of care, the indulgence in bliss so dense it's stifling. I've never felt so small. The whispers and giggles of children, the strange songs or shouts of teenagers, mockingly calling out to me.

I think one of the biggest things I've always wondered about as a black person was why I was thought of as dirtier, undesirable and to some degree and flaw in the matrix. I am regarded with fear and apprehension, with the idea that I am inherently violent snd need to be treated accordingly.

In almost most of the prominent and ancient civilisations televised, there is the thought and practice of whitening to become more appealing, more tolerable. In modern times, the sentiment has stayed and carried through the years.

Why do I have to compete with someone who will automatically be more appealing to the eye? Not only are they the acceptable skin tone, they're probably half my weight. Why do I have to compete in any case? How can I even compete? I feel like I've lost in almost any category I can think of.