I speak like a native:
The white barbarian
With an axe in my tongue,
Forked and twisted silver;
Punctuation - art-pierced -
Slipping into the split.
Pink slave to the curl and the roll,
The wave and the click and the tsk,
The cluck, and the bite of the cat -
Push against the roof and the cheek.
Making sounds more palatable with words
Like guardian snails trapped in my mouth:
All shells and slimy feet,
My mother tongue slips out.
To the parlour we slink
With skin as thin as silk,
To become as dark as mink fur:
Gone out like an oil spill at midnight.
Tat me asian like a lemon going sour.
Tat me african like a raisin going sweet.
Tat me caucasian like good milk gone bad.
Tat me until blood runs deep with smudges.
From the pain parlour we stagger,
Skin riddled bloody and jagged,
We’re scarred illustrations, with a swagger:
Embracing kin, to be men without skin.
Soft canvas surfaces, colorful scabs,
Rush as one to throw light on our blindness.
My right to life is a privileged one,
By law, I live a watched life,
From my white wrist up -
My state protects me from myself.
I suspect me of nothing: willingly,
I am in my own custody -
A flight risk no more.
Treat me inhuman, treat me unkind,
I degrade myself from my higher peace of mind.
I force myself to labor for me,
Unprotected downward, as any slave
Should spiral spreadeagled to be.
I convict me of crimes I only think
I didn’t do. I imprison my
Liberty in its rightful lofty place,
Then punish it until proven guilty.
Confession time: will I marry me and raise
My family of one as I have razed me
To the ground (in private
like I promised myself)?
I freely think so.
I practise the same.
I believe in my downfall.
I do not protest the gravity
Of my privilege and express myself
As I wish to express myself -
Equally, as is my right.
I treat me unfairly: I use examples
Of my gender, my race, my sexuality, my religion, my age.
I am my property: well-educated in self-denial,
As I jump from privilege to ground zero
My leather bomber jacket keeps me together:
I’m a karma crazy hero.
