#10

Stuck in the middle of this perfect

Case with many faces, I hold the light,

I manipulate it to my pleasure, my body

How it glistens and gleams and sparkles

How it lifts the room, a person’s mood,

A person’s confidence, I have become the

Perfect accessory, how they drape me

Over their wrists, I became a fixture

for marriage bonds in a religion

that was forced on me, they found me

In the earth, said to have given me life

Said I had no language no birth rite

They desire and worship my body

Some appropriate my look,

They touch me whenever they get the chance

I don’t desire to be objectified, lightened my skin,

tried to conceal my curves or accentuate

them more to fulfill a fantasy mysterious

imbedded in fear and fetish, they put down

money and like to call me “sold”

I was good, I was raw, I was uncut,

Until they uprooted my whole existence

In value of net-worth, by my color

My weight, my luster, my shine, sold

To the highest bidder, they like to call me

“asset” the way I dance

And entertain at a ball, the way I turn a

Neck into a dancehall, made to shuck-n-jive

For some blue-eyes. Said life would be better,

Cut down to meet the “civilized” expectations,

A thing to be conquered, a frontier, a continent

To be called, “mine” from a people

who had nothing but the color

Of their skin.