Day 6- A Stranger

To the black man with the scorched skin who at a second gaze burned me to ashes

it is the right time to find you beautiful,

the sun is scantily clad

DC is the city of hot

hot humid nights

and men the color of things that got hot too quickly

I'm still shedding all the ugly i find in me

So it took a second glance

maybe you heard the exclamation

You are a victim

or healing tool,

product of a lie

or pedestal

My throat quivers tsunamis

"I cannot love a man who looks like me"**

Your skin is a slap across an insecure face,

the burning remnants of thinking:

the sun touched too much,

too much.

It is too easy to see the ugly put in me

We like that hard kind of beauty

So, today

you are that purpose-full type of pretty

Wonder if you heard the fright before the exclamations,

the stutter

the pause

the scoff

Maybe

you tell women you meet

that they should love you

for how your skin glistens

for the faint reflections found

in the opaques trapped in your outline

Maybe

they are all lily white

or better still

the right not almost but quite

I wonder if you will ever believe like they do

Like i say, because I would like to

You, beautiful

it was a ripe day to find you

**ade is fucking booooomb

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Deadass in the middle of the 1st one realized I wanted to write about the beautiful African at marshalls.. ye..my cashier, smh

I imagine the shaken sanctuaries

and fallen figures

of your country

are bruised and engraved

over your heart

under your name tag

Dear stranger,

I did not ask your name because

I was afraid it would be beautiful

or that the way you said it would make it so

Did not ask your country because

I am sure it is entirely too close

to my first love's

to bring me any peace

By the proud of your nose

and the faint of your eyes

I'm pegged on certainty of your Somali

And you can surely tell I have a country,

too far from this one

to not be called home,

or mother

--land

I am not proud about anything

around men like you

I am glad you did not ask

The act,

as if all the Africa had been poured out of me,

made it easier to face

something other than yours

I cannot look you in your eyes

I would like my bag

and receipt

and permission

to leave

Thank you.