Thursday, April 1, 2021

What a pretty name

Hi, my name is
not nearly as important
what you call me 
behind closed doors, closed 
minds, or closed hearts 


where you fetishize an 
exoticness that once threatened
your grandparents so much 
that they sent mine
to Arkansan incarceration camps 

emerging years later with 
broken hearts and steeled
wills, a thirst to 
prove their Americanness/humanity,
become a model minority 

modeling resilience after abuse,
white-adjacent acceptability, and 
generational trauma embedded deep 
in the DNA that
became this face you 

now deem desirable


 

April PAD 2021

Poetic Asides Prompt Day 1: introduction poem


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