Thank You, Little White Girl

Thank you, Little White Girl

Sitting there with pig-tails

On your little red tricycle

"Hi, Nigger!"

Waving at me walking by on a Wednesday

Ripping at the ambling daydream

Of my stroll home from after school

My shell-toes are scuff-free

My Kangol hat is cocked ever so cool

In the deep suburbs Where I live at

I am an anomaly - a novelty

My rarity is my celebrity

Cuz, I know all the "cool songs"

I got girlfriends (plural) and

None of them are my color

And a couple of their mothers

Want to get to know me in private

My style is Xeroxed and xenofied

And I don't pay much mind

To the cops that stop me on my own Block

Flashing their lights at me

Like paparazzi 

Always asking me

"Do you live around here?" (boy)?"

Man, I was so naive

But not no more

Thanks to you, Little White Girl...

You and your sing-song salutation

Fluttering thru the tassels 

Of the handle bars of your little red tricycle:

When you smiled real big, waving at me

"Hi Nigger...!", you said...

I didn't hear it at first...

And you must've seen it float away un-noticed

So, you repeated it:
Louder, waving more urgently

"Hi Nigger! HI NIGGER!!"

THIS time it reaches me

BOLD and italicized

You wonder why I don't reply

Ah, but your little blue eyes are too small

To see the lance pierced into my side
To see me looking like a sacrificed Nazerite 

Your pale ears are way too small to hear 
the mirror of cultural assumptions 
shatter right in front of me

But what can I do but, keep walking...?

Pretending I don't feel the pain
While cutting the soles of my feet on the shards of incredulity

I can't really blame you for the lynchings
Or the missed job opportunities

I can't expect you to stop

The police from pulling me over for no reason

Or shooting me for less than that...

See...
I know it's your parents fault 

Even though your mama watches me walk by everyday too
Wondering if all the myths are true
Thinking about getting that spade tattoo 

But I  just... keep walking, 
Ambling into my daydream, oblivious to my own suffering

Leaving you still sitting here 

On a little red tricycle

Still waving at me walking by

On a Wednesday

My face slowing drying into the mask 

That all my people wear

Sitting Hard and bitter on our faces
Sealing up our lips and our souls,

It wont even let me reply...