N U D E - poetry of an unquiet mind ✓

viii. melanin

melanin

They made jokes about my skin,
Made me feel ashamed of my melanin.
They tried to strip me of my black pride,
But they didn't know the fire that was inside.
They had criteria for 'beauty'; black wasn't one,
Enslaved by standards that saw us shunned.
He doesn't see past the colour of my pigment,
Black as he is, he still calls me different.
Pervasive stereotypes of 'angry black women',
Put to silence in your typecast prison.
For a long time I was ashamed of the scars that covered my body,
Because they showed how the words of adversary got to me.
But I'm proud of my skin and it's origin,
I don't need silk hair and skin like porcelain.
It may have taken me a while to get here,
But let me be, on this one thing, loud and clear.
Just because my rich pigment makes me outwardly different,
Doesn't mean that I am insignificant.
My dad, he fought wars for equal rights,
So I wouldn't have to be ashamed of who I am on the outside.
So next time you try to define me by my sun kissed skin,
Know that I love and glorify my melanin.

// R.M.