Anthology of Intersectional Bodies

The following is a compilation of poems submitted anonymously by University of Rochester undergraduates and Rochester East High school students. The prompt was "write a poem about what its like to live in a raced body in the world today, particularly focusing on the embodied experience"

(1)

I come from where all people go to, a place of worship,

From where all want to go to, and me escape from,

The place where all are the same, but I am different.

However, it is also where individualism is not acceptable.

I am from the place of care, love, fighting, and the hardship of living in such circumstances.

I am from the most sacred place on earth, but not where all honor it.

I come from the place that billions of people around the world direct to everyday,

Where I had great blesses that I did not know about before leaving the place I am from.

I am from where I am told what the best is, instead of learning what is it,

To then come here and realize all the ideas were really the best, if done as it were said!

I am from the place that has not identified me but it gave me strength,

From the place I miss most, but do not want to go back to yet.

Right now, I’m from that place in between,

Where I am appreciating what I have had back then and taking full advantage of what I have now.

Originally, I am from the place that I want to go back to, help make better for people to stay and my

top goal is this to be.

(2)

"ABC"

I am the product of two alien worlds

I am it's ugly misshapened disabled

Half breed daughter, half breed monster.

My auntie asked which parent I loved most

(I said I didn't know)

She asked me if they could never be reconciled

Which would I live with?

I said if I had to be honest neither

I said I hated both but because I've been claimed by one

I'll probably go with my father.

And so it was.

Except my mother never really left,

And she would come to see me,

Hug me, and kiss me with her sloppy saliva

Saying I belonged to her, her womb,

My motherland, my blood

And my father would stare

Then walk out

Squatting by the curbside, smoking a cig

Blinking fast, head glancing about,

As if there were something left to find.

If my parents were opposites, I'd know what I was.

(Now I'm indulging myself.)

Somewhere, what I am is hidden

Somewhere, in a spectrum of difference

Undiscovered unstudied uncared for.

If it were all opposite, I could imagine

An alien me in alien worlds

Topsy turvy

Pig Latin

Counter status quo.

My home is not so kind;

Logic and reason break down.

There is no common language to be spoken.

There is no common status quo to reform.

What lies between me and my parents, my home,

Feels so empty, feels so silent,

As if there was nothing more to say,

Nothing more to feel, nothing more to cry over,

Nothing more to see, nothing more to salvage.

(3)

Our differences started out only skin deep but they've become so much more

Each color comes with a label, each shade with an identity

Help me shrug it off

Help me rip every label and reject every identity

Let's make our own

I want you to see my soul but my skin is in the way

Differences that permeate every moment

Started out skin deep

You left my labels on and let them guide you

Society has gotten a hold of you and made you change

I can see the tears in your eyes as you say

I really love your soul but your skin is in the way

(4)

I.

Should the image of my whiteness

Held within your blackness—

Need getting used to?

Should our intertwined fingers—

Cause reflection?

I think it’s beautiful,

We both say.

But should we think anything at all?

If love is blind—

Then shouldn’t it be color blind too?

II.

You are black.

Black like the damp underside of tree bark.

Black like the soil it decomposes in.

Black like the darkness I escape to in the night.

And I am white.

White like what?

White like contrast.

White like the effort of finding a white crayon to draw on black paper.

White like the peculiarity of seeing a black cat with white paws.

White like the question of is that a black thing with a white pattern—

Or the other way around?

White like my hand in yours.

III.

We were intimate for the first time last night.

You were hungry.

Almost forceful.

I wanted to succumb to you.

I wanted to let you and your libidinous drive

Take my body.

Because I felt your raw desire,

untainted by false expectations

I felt you seeing me—

and nothing beyond or outside of me—

and seeing beauty.

I had never felt that before.

But I couldn’t.

Tienes miedo?

You asked.

No, I’m not afraid.

Not of you—I didn’t say—

But of letting go of my script—

My script of protection—

That says men are not to be trusted—

Not to be vulnerable with—

And not to be given anything—

That can’t be returned.

But you embodied nothing of whom that script

Was developed for—

A series of white men

That always looked beyond me.

IV.

But you are different.

Why?

Is it all that I can’t understand within your darkness?

Is it the layer of separation between our consciousness

That I only see in your

(widespread nose)

(large bottom lip)

(red-tinted eyes)

(African accent)

Is it the exoticization of difference—

That I’ve always deemed beautiful?

Do I perceive you as a cradle for my whiteness

Like a pearl held in a black shell—

Not my skin

But the idea

That my skin embodies.

Are you a momentary transgression—

A fast path to my liberation?

Because I want you to devour me

But then again,

Tengo miedo.

(16)

Here i

Here i struggle. i cry

Here i feel pain from being neglected

Here i feel traumatized painful memories

Here i feel the need to fight and stand up for myself

Here i feel unloved because my dad wasn't there

Here i'm on my own if you don't make it happen it doesn't get done

Here times is hard at the end of the month bills come back

Here you have to get it cause it isn't given

Here your tears are not acceptable you have to get in ya bag

Here you wear black easy to blend in and get away from 12 -don’t know what 12 is? They cops, they killers. THey the up - to - date KKK. They the police.

Here you strap up cause you a walking lick (w/ stufff you took from someone), stain

Here there isn't a team

Here you on ya own no one can help you at night when you on the block have to help ya self

Here the cops can't save you

Here you can't get caught because that's jail time

Here it's hard to get by

Here is poverty -skinny, dirty, you can see people in poverty look like old dogs.

Here is tears from the sound of a gun shot someone child just got smoke

Here you have to keep ya enemies close to you

Here you have to watch ya back - keep that tang [your girls] with you, and don’t get caught in the wrong hood (West side).

Here it shoot or get shot

Here don't get caught on someone else block here is the streets - East side or West side.

Here you snitch you a dead man walking

Here is the streets where it gets real

Here it ain't it easy