Not white

Day 25: White

I

Colour
Is it karma
Non pallor

Not white
Accountable
For plight

Fatal
Dark complexion
Total

Poetry form: Musette

II

Does the colour of my skin bother you?

Does the hue of my skin define me?

Who decided fair is beautiful?

And that dark is ugly?

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder,

Why don’t the eyes move beyond the complexion?

Does the shape of my eye,

My radiant smile amount to nothing?

I am not white but brown

In a country of brown-skinned majority

Yet, men and women alike

Have reminded me time and again

That my skin is of a tone,

That is found unacceptable by society

I didn’t choose my colour

I was born with it

And I proudly flaunt it

I care not what others think,

I grew up looking at it

staring at me from the mirror

This is the colour I am most comfortable with.

(Written for OctPoWriMo)

I have posted two poems today, one in the suggested form, musette and the other in free verse. We were ruled by white men for many years and though we blame them for most of the ills plaguing our country, we are obsessed with white skin.

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