There Are No Strangers Here (03/2025)

Is this who I must be?

A man conformed inside a bubble of Manhood

A person forced into a bubble of Race

A human stuck in a bubble of Inhumanity?

You know how many stories I’ve written?

How many tales I've told?

You know how many people have asked me

If I could write about the pride I’d sold?

Deep down dark in the deep down, 

Where my soul meets Uncle Sam, 

His coined rattled voice whispers to me,

“Ain’t you a pretty little thing. . .” 

Deep down dead in the graveyard, 

Where my ancestors still bleed,

Their blood soaked soil whispers to me, 

“Ain’t you a pretty little thing. . .” 

I’m a Halfling, 

An exotic creature, 

A harrowing fiend of sewed fabric. 

I lurk in the dark corners of every culture, 

Waiting to have the cloth peeled off. 

That’s how they see me. 

Something beautiful, 

Something stark, 

Something light and full of intrigue, 

Yet something equally as dark. 

The moment I speak I hear rooms gasp. 

“Oh my,” they’d say, “you speak so well,” 

“You’re just like us!” 

Except I’m not, 

I thought I was just like me. 

You think I’m civilized? 

You think I’m rich in Aristocracy? 

I don’t talk 'Ghetto' enough for you?

I don’t act 'Down' enough for you?

So what if I don’t know all of my culture?

So what if I understand how your politics work? 

I’m still foreign to all of you? 

Let me ask both of you opposite colors, 

Am I Black enough for you?

Well I have to be, right? 

Because if I don’t pay for my oppression

When I too chant, “No taxation without representation!” 

Just like the rest of us colors, 

I’m taken back to the past and locked in shackles

As they mock me for trying to ‘Do The Right Thing;’ 

My name is slandered, 

My home is slandered, 

My family is slandered, 

My past is slandered, 

My efforts are slandered, 

My faith is slandered, 

My life is slandered, 

and My people are slandered. 

All of that, because I'm the stain on the nation’s rebranded canvas. 

It’s a color war 

And us colors are forced to fight the Whiteout. 

So now what? 

Now when we stand?

Well who’s we?

I ain’t see anybody standing with me. 

I’m too this or I'm too that, 

There ain’t no shine for the shoes on my feet. 

I don’t get to act without doing, 

Can't you see me on the frontlines 

Watching my brothers and sisters fight in union?

All I ask is that we stop and look around, 

Who cares if we’re blown to bits, 

Look at what we’ve found, 

Together. 

I’m just like all of you, 

And yet I'm nothing you’ve ever seen. 

So when I say, “there are no strangers here,” 

This is what I mean: 

‘I can see you naked

Bare flesh through your rich clothes,

I have all of y’all’s blood in my veins 

So fuck your bias and look at me, 

Can you finally see the monster you’ve made?’