Dear Culture
I adore you,
Your lively dancing and curly hair
Your strong persona that emerges from melanin skin, breaking through every obstacle life throws
I applaud you, culture
I admire you, culture
And I am sorry that I do not fit with you, culture
Your powerful aura is my filter
Grasping, choking, stealing the best parts of me to put on a pedestal and show the world
But you won't take the worst of me
The overwhelming sadness, the need to escape my seclusive being
Your liveliness is my leash
A pseudo-freedom, only to tighten every time I try to be free
And now I’m clawing at my throat, begging for air
But you don’t hear me
No
You won’t hear me
The worst of me doesn’t exist to you but it exists to me
It’s the only thing I have that is mine and I cling to it
I cling to the worst of me
Talking myself out of things that will inevitably make me go insane
Soaking my pillow in salty water because I can not flow free
To you, my pain is unjustifiable, a paragon of thin skin
But you have no idea the hold of the demons inside of me
Begging to be free but all I need is for you to
HEAR ME
But how can you hear me when sometimes you can’t even hear yourself