Sashily Kling
Award winning and published poem, "One Word".
One Word
My sun kissed skin
creates questions asked
by cold silent eyes
tight lips smiling civilly
a masked monster
politically correct
"Can she speak English?"
I gasp
thin thread rips
my last shred
of courtesy
I try to grasp
that thin line
of conscious
restraint
in my fingertips
blood rushes to my eyes
blind
not deaf
My sun kissed skin
confuses creatures
of comfort
living Pinocchio lives
morals held in disbelief
mine or theirs?
"What if she steals the jewelry?"
I stalk
predatory mouths
telling tawdry tales
race unforgivable
language bro-
ken
history repeats
without challenge
stereotype
of the wrong picture
judged
through distorted lens
My sun kissed skin
speaks stories
of bloodlines intermingled
by love and brutality
ancestors seeking
refuge and respite
"She's not really American, right?"
I sputter a dead
response on my tongue
One word
resounds
a gong
against my head
Unheeded
Unwanted
Unimaginable
"Spic"