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Writer's pictureBloomfield College Underground

Poems by Rahsheda Moss

How to be a dark girl


Five simple rules.

That’s all it takes. It is super easy


1.) Don’t talk to loudly.

Your voice has to be delicate and quiet

Sense your skin isn’t

Even when you are arguing try not to raise

Your voice

Make your mouth a graveyard

You can’t fall into that stereotype that looms

On us.


The mad loud black woman.


2.) Don’t even try to wash it off.

It won’t work, your skin will stay as black as that midnight sky

No matter how much you scrub, whether you

Use a rag or your nails you will not see the

Residence of your skin on that rag or resting in your

Nail beds.


3.) Don’t wear bright colors.

Whatever you do not ever wear yellow.

Because our skin definitely does not go with yellow at all.

You don’t want to be on the bad end of

A joke or be an object of ridicule. You are too

Dark for bright colors.


4.) Don’t appreciate your skin.

Don’t love and praise the dark, rich gift

That was blessed upon you by God.

They will get mad when you acknowledge your

Natural sunscreen skin that absorbs the sun shine

And the power you really have just because

Of your skin.


5.) Don’t give thanks to your skin.

Because even if it is your skin you are not

Allowed to love your skin.

You see others can love your skin if they see fit.

If it’s the right shade of dark.




 


Pain


As he digs the knife into her soft flesh,

Her screams are piercing, echoing throughout the room


What is he thinking?

What is creeping through his mind as he drags that blade

Across her flesh?

What is he feeling?


She is strapped down, her movements limited.

She can’t escape, can’t run away.


Who would she run to?

Who would help her?

Who would feel for her?


She was sold and bought because of the treasure

Between her thighs.

And because of the color of her skin.


What is he thinking?

What is he thinking?


Black women don’t feel pain.


As if black women are not human. Like we don’t feel

What white women feel. Like we are immune to everything.

This is what he says to justify his actions where he brings torturous

Pain to innocent women. And ya’ll build a monument to him.

A statue.

Ya’ll worship him.

Ya’ll call him ‘The father of modern Gynecology”

As if one good thing outweighs all the bad he has done.


Black women don’t feel pain.


I can hear the screams of the women that had their

Life stolen.

They are screaming to be heard. To be saved once again.

Hoping that someone will come for them and take them from this hell.


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