WHAT IS WRONG WITH BEING BLACK?

She handed me the book

And its title became my muse

As I stare at the cover page hoping to find answers to the question that marks an x on my chest

What is wrong with being black?

Why is my skin the color of crime?

And why am I used as a case study for judgment

Am I an outlaw?

Or was I made for another planet

Why do I feel like I was created to serve those with white flesh?

And are the four walls of college an evil forest I dare not venture into?

Or am I too premature to deal with its aftermath

What is wrong with being black?

Why do they terminate the exploits of my forefathers like miscarriages?

Why have they possessed my thoughts with the spirit of the inferiority complex?

For they have broken the bridge where humanity meets like a confluence point

And have shattered my dreams for better eternity

I sink like the titanic every time my essence is being smashed against the wall

And when I see the heads of my kinsmen relocated from their bodies or the branches of their hands searching for the headquarters of their joints like a missing budget

Or my sisters turned mobile motels and temporary homes for the emotionally starved

Our belief system carries no more weight as we are nothing but photocopies of them

Our fertile wombs seen as cursed soils

Why do bullets stay glued to the bodies of my siblings overseas like magnets?

What is wrong with being black?

Absolutely nothing

For black is perfect

For black is strength made human

Black is beauty

Black is redemption song sung through the lips of Uncle Marley

Black is the color of Uncle Dube’s locks rooted deep into the scalp of mother Africa

Black is music

Black is freedom

Black is impossibilities made possible

So again I ask,

What is wrong with being black?