Sometimes I just wish I could share my blackness with people for just a day
Give the hurt and grief and sorrow away.
For just a moment I'd like to be like a ghost
Wandering through the world
Lost in the cold
Share my experience as an American
Who destiny was never to be what it is
I wish I could explain how being black is
African with no heritage
American with no privilege
I wish I could show them
See as a woman of color there are rules
Don't object
Don't tell
Don't speak
Don't yell
Be good be nice
Be all sugar and spice
Don't be ratchet or raunchy
Just be a copy
Of little Sally down the ways
Her blond hair and white skin
makes who she is okay
Don't be the mad girl
Don't be the sad girl
I wish I could copy this perception
This desperate feeling of being trapped but seeming free
Wanting to run
Wanting to flee
but being stuck
Like a dog on a leash
to an old oak tree
I wish I could show them
The injustices I see
The pain I feel
The curses that are passed down from momma and daddy like melanin
But see if they knew my plan they'd never let me in
If I could copy empathy for Emmit Till,
Or love for Lauren Hill,
The hate of an injustice system
A plan to not be the victim.
If I could just show them
Stop out my no-name shoes
Step into Jimmy Choos
Switch places in the world for just a moment in time
That'd be long enough for them to find
All the problems that the skewed perception of my melanin brings
All the life without shiny things
I wasn't born at the bottom
But I'm a damn long way from the top
Wish I could live a life without seeing law enforcement as ops
Can't they see this is me and I'd have it no other way
But to be black and to be American was not in the plan per se
See I still hear the sounds of Blackness
The sounds of slaves singing of freedoms unknown
I listen to the trees on which they hung groaning
Groaning for justice and equality that's never been shown
I still hear the cries of the black mother who lost her son to the klan
The pain refuses to yield yet here I am
In the middle of a sea lacking integrity
Wishing there was a way I could set these sounds free
And fly them away very far of course
Until they reach unknown shores
I wish I could heal the wounds time tells
I wish I could help after every yell
From a mother whos told her son has been gunned down for his blackness
From a family that sees the injustice but feels powerless
From a girl who has no clue why Tommy won't love her
From a boy who has no clue why he's getting pulled over
I wish I could take these pleas
And set these people free
I yearn to free these souls
Untie them and let the wind take control
Show everyone that the color of my skin
Is just melanin
And that it deserves no lesser or greater love
No diminished or greater respect
Than my true soul
See Hunny this is just a vessel
And sometimes it likes to wrestle
Take hold of my soul and hide
Find some other way to thrive
God how I wish you take these thorns from my side
Take this racism this oppression and put it aside
Take our true nature that's built after you
Make us better people
All good no evil
Listening and loving each other
Understanding and holding one another
God can you put blinders on us for one day
To make the difference of skin fade
And show us the only important thing is you
Maybe that's too good to be true but
I have a dream
In this dream
I'm fully known and fully appreciated
We're all together
Race and difference is alleviated
That one day not only will we play together and coexist
But maybe stop for a moment to think
about how another person's life is
God perhaps this is too good to be true
But God I want us to be more like you
I want us to love each other equally and passionately
Forget all the wars forget the catastrophes
Believe in something pure and clean
God this sounds like heaven to me
And the only way to start to get close to that
Is for everyone under my voice to hear and understand the sounds of my blackness