racial fantasies

a clear mold

clinging and bending

to the outside of a solid,

the outside of a

clear, black line.

–

holding my breath

until i’ve computed

her movements

her cadence, her stops and starts

never exhaling.

–

race is the first thing we register

i never quite registered

myself

did you?

–

imagining

ancestors as

two separate streams

both stopping

at me.

–

attempting to

split self in

half –

speak from one

whole side

then speak from

the other.

splitting hurts –

there are no

two whole

sides.

–

going inward,

expecting to feel

an answer

feeling emptiness

knowing it’s all just absurd.

from without, from within

gray outside, gray inside

my skin outside so close to inside

my inside so vulnerable to

gray outside

my gray outside breaks in

gray inside, my

inside and outside

confuse each other for themselves

see gray and gray

assume they are one and

the same

if today gray outside and

gray inside

does gray always lead to gray?

where do yellow and blue and

purple come in,

do i have to find

them outside too –

outside to bring them

in or

inside to create without?

it helps to see the model –

the alternative

helps to see yellow,

let yellow seep in

i’ve created a cave that is myself –

stone and mud walls to protect

a sense of self, beg yellow

to break its way in but

have i explored the cavernous

expanses of my darkness?

every color makes

black.