I have no wrongs

Flaws and all

I’m just me...

Being me,

Oh me, myself and I-I-II-I-III-II

Mistakes are mine to make

I’m no one but a human being

Flaws and all

I’m everything, everything

Oh, everything I’m meant to be

You says God made you and I

Then, God made me this way

And I was born this way

Oh-oh-oh

Stories are mine to tell

And no one else’s but mine

Let me tell in my own voice

Hey, wait

My voice isn’t just like yours

My voice may sound funny

These accent are mine only

Try to understand this,

My ears don’t hear

But my eyes SEE

There’s more,

My voice don’t sings

But they DANCES

While my heart sings

I’m just somebody like you

I’ve got two ears, but I can’t hear

I’ve got two eyes, and I have contact lens

But I wear glasses and it is red

And I’ve got a mouth, and I’m okay

Ain’t there nothing wrong with me

I have voice and I can make sounds,

Talking is overrated and I couldn’t sing,

(It’s obvious!)

But my hands, oh but my hands DANCES

You wanna know me,

You gotta eyes on me,

Eyes on me, hard, hard, haaaa-aa-aaarrd

(Listen, listen, listen hard)

I’ll ride, or I’ll die

This way, this way

Ride, or die this way

Ain’t no one changing me

Flaws and all, I’m me

Me being me..

Recently, swaths of far right parties have been cropping up around the world to combat what is now known as PC/SJW culture. An evil leftist invention that is meant to feminize our men and put people of color or women in positions of power that they don’t deserve. Or at least that’s what many right leaning websites say. And frankly, it seems to be working. Brazil, the country with the biggest pride festival in the world, recently elected a man who said that he would beat up two men kissing in the street and rape women who deserve to be raped or even the AfD, a far-right party in Germany who wishes to set up holding camps abroad to stop migration all together, is gaining power.

California, specifically The Bay Area, has been a bubble in which I’ve been happily living in for around nine years now. The weather is nice as it never really goes over 90 degrees sans rare occasions and it never really goes below 50 either, most parts of it are relatively safe, San Francisco pride is one of the biggest pride parades in the world, and most of the people I’ve met have been liberal. Sure, there were quite a few conservatives, but it wasn’t Jair, let’s beat up “the gays”, Bolsonaro. So, I thought that I would never come across a person like this in real life and if I did, I have spent enough time dealing with trolls online to know what to do. 

My school is quite like The Bay Area. You know, sunny, liberal, and likes to flaunt our money around while the rest of The Bay Area struggles to get by and we look down on them screaming “HAHA, SCREW YOU, PEASANTS!” Side note: most students pay the full $45,000 tuition and somehow my school wrangles more money out of everyone’s pockets with 100% of families donating money to the school every year. My mom gives like $100 but some people legitimately add on another $1-5000 on top of the $45,000 tuition. Okay, so the other kids at my school are rich, living in their lavish mansions and chilling in their jacuzzis until midnight, but that doesn’t make them assholes… right?

Well, it’s history class and I’ve just gotten back an essay I’ve spent a shocking amount of time slavery over. “Comparing and Contrasting Chinese and African American Immigration to California”. Not the most interesting subject, but it was one of the last essays of the year so I needed to do well on it. And it paid off! I got a 95; yay me! I’m basically skipping up those stairs to the cafeteria, throwing open those double doors, and letting the comforting smell of eggs and bacon guide me over to my friend’s table. 

This friend was actually the only person there even though he wasn’t actually sitting down yet. He’s a really smart Indian kid who got a 36 on the ACT even though he routinely tells me that he can’t do anything remotely English or Reading related. We all know that kid. Anyway, he asks me how I did on the essay, I tell him I got a 95, and his awkward smile quickly turns into a frown. You could see the creases form on his face as he looked at me in confusion. Then, as soon as it was there, it was gone and he smiled again as if he suddenly figured out the solution to the problem that was blaring inside his head a moment ago. 

And he did.

He placed and arm on my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “I don’t want this to sound… racist or anything, Xavier. But you do realize that you only did well on that essay because you’re black, right?” 

Imagine you’re me, okay? For a split second, your mind just freezes over and you stare at him with that same look of confusion he gave you earlier. You realize the reason he was so confused was because he couldn’t fathom how you were smart enough to get such a good grade at this school. The school you had to test into and beat out hundreds of other kids with much more money than you. I mean, the school loses money whenever you sign up for another year. So… Why would they pick you? I mean, he’s right. You’re not that smart, you’re not charismatic so you have no idea how you got through the interview process, and he’s been your friend since sixth grade so he knows everything about you. Maybe deep down you knew what he said was wrong, but even deeper down you don’t want to lose a friend. You’re too scared of being alone and he’s one of the only friends you have. So you laugh. You laugh and tell him that he’s right. That you’re just some stupid black kid who got their grade saved by a teacher who liked them. A teacher who was too scared to give the black kid a bad grade on an essay about race.

I believed him. A different friend had said something similar a few months earlier. He recently had been accepted to Cornell and told me that I should apply too. I joking reminded him of my poor performances in math and how that would probably prevent me from going since it brought my GPA down but it seemed like he actually believed in me. He told me that it was fine if I wasn’t good at math because since I was black, I could get into any college I wanted without really being good at anything.

That’s how affirmative action works.

I was being gifted a free path through life that I didn’t even know existed. While everyone else stayed up until two in the morning studying for their next physics test or spent hours on the weekend going over vocabulary words with their strict parents, I didn’t even have to do anything. How did I get into this school? Luck? Yeah, that was probably it. They just needed that token black kid to look good in school photos for “diversity”. 

I like to think that they had good reasons for saying those things. Maybe they didn’t mean for it to come out that way, but the reality is that they still thought the only way I was able to be successful was because of my race. You can’t police people’s thoughts, I know that, but the fact that they thought like that in the first place is problematic. I’ve met more and more people like this and I can never exactly tell them that they’re wrong. Something just feels… well, wrong, about it but I’m too scared to be alone so that Indian kid and the guy at Cornell are still my friends to this day. Both of these people are self described liberals; especially the guy at Cornell because he has told me several times how much he dislikes conservatives. It’s almost as if they are fine with tearing others down as long as it doesn’t involve people like them because then it would hurt a lot more. The more you distance yourself from what you’re saying, the less it hurts. It has created this society in which people will do anything to feel the slightest bit of superiority.  A society where my school friends are allowed to playfully compare their scores and figure out who performed the best but as soon as I enter the conversation, they immediately expect me to do poorly and if I don’t it’s because some outside force is giving the black kid a helping hand. What other choice do I have?

Write your lies on my pages,

Pour your truths out to me.

Scribble notes of adoration,

Draw lines of tainted ink.

Decorate my scars with strokes

of red and blue and green.

Paint over my flaws with hues

of darling uncertainty.

Mold me into some twisted sculpture

of your perfect apathy.

Rip and tear me into a collage

of my falsified fantasy.

Every now and then, I want to be alone. I need it. The world can be sometimes overwhelming and being alone can help.

Sitting on my bed, eyes closed, listening to soft music. What a bliss! Just me and my thoughts, the soothing feeling of not having to pretend. Letting my guards down and just being. No need to talk. No need to live up to anybody's expectations.

Oh, how calm that makes me feel! How relaxed!

But people don't see it that way. They think: "Being alone is so depressing!" But they're wrong. Alone doesn't mean lonely.

When you're lonely, you feel abandoned. You don't have anybody around to make you feel better. Lonely is dark. It's a hole you're falling in, desperate and so, so sorrowful.

Alone is different. You can be alone and not feel lonely. Just as you can be lonely when surrounded by people. Alone is a state. Lonely is a feeling.

I'm not lonely.

I love being alone.

I am so tired

Of all of these people

Trying to change me

For something they want

I am so tired

Of all of these people

And their entitled ways

Taking what little I have

I am so tired

Of all of these people

And their controlling voices

Taking the freedom I had

I am so tired

Of all of these people

Telling me that what I am

Who I am, is bad; wrong

I am so tired

Of trying to please these people

Trying to be someone else

Trying to be myself

I am so tired

Of trying to be a person

Worthy of glance

Take my breath away

Take my breath away

For I am unworthy of glance.

Do me a favor

And ignore my pleas.

Take my breath away

For I am of no significance.

Do me a favor

And dress me in my truths.

Take my breath away

Hang my head at the altar -

For I have fell through a ring

Just like the one I wish I could be.

Take my breath away.

Fashion me a grave.

Ready it for my coffin -

And throw the first fist.

Take my breath away

And lay flowers at my stone.

Imagine my laughs and smiles

For I have gone; unworthy was I.

Take my breath away

Someone above may see

This child unworthy by glance

Worthy by heart and mind

Take my breath away

And follow the cars outside

Watch these cemetery gates close

And don’t be afraid;

I don’t know who in their right mind gave my stepbrother his driver’s license, but he sure as hell didn’t deserve it. I’m thinking that to pass a driver’s test in Modesto, you just need to show that you can start up a car and not ram it into a building immediately because when I think of a decent driver, I do not think of someone who manages to leave a part of his truck hanging off a mountain every time he turns a corner. Now, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt: this mountain road was narrow… and my sister was screaming her lungs out, but she was screaming because of his incompetence. The seven of us, packed tightly in the small truck, could only pray that my stepbrother, Kenneth, didn’t drive us off a mountain and let us end up as forgotten piles of human remains at the bottom of the valley. My stepsister repeatedly yelled at me to shut my sister up but with all the commotion reverberating in my eardrums, I was more focused on not puking all over the truck. Eventually, we reached a tunnel, and cool air rushed into the truck while Kenneth started honking his horn like crazy. Apparently, that’s a Californian tradition.

Apparently, it was also tradition for my stepdad and his family to go camping every year. However, my mother didn’t have to go. Instead, she shipped my sister and me off with a farewell hug, hoping we’d learn something worthwhile up in the mountains. I can’t speak for my sister, but I was in no shape ready for some learning, considering the fact that I was deathly afraid of heights and everyone in my stepfamily. I’d known them for less than a year and I was supposed to entrust my life to them out here in the wild? Please no. Their rough and tough demeanor terrified me. My stepdad frequently made fun of me for being weak and one of my stepsisters, Marquelle, always commented on my feminine eyelashes and how they were weird. I lived with six of them: three stepsisters, two stepbrothers, and one stepdad, but there were many family members on the trip that I didn’t know.

Day One of the camping trip started when my stepbrother put a bunch of people in the bed of a pickup truck and proceeded to drive very quickly to the top of the mountain in an attempt to scare us. After my sister’s little screaming fest earlier, she wasn’t invited, but since I was so quiet earlier, they thought I’d be fine with it. Here’s a little hint: I was not. What was I supposed to say to the guy who repeatedly called me out for being weak? “Yeah, I don’t want to take a drive up to the top of the mountain because I’m afraid your son is gonna throw me off”? Seemed like a great plan to me! So I stayed quiet and got in the back of the truck. The stepsister who talked about my feminine eyelashes a lot could tell that I didn’t want to be there, probably because I asked her numerous questions about where we were going and that I flinched every time the bed trembled slightly (I was flinching a lot). She kept trying to reassure me that everything was going to be fine by saying that they did this every year, but I was thinking that there was a first time for everything. They might take this little trip every year, but Kenneth was a new driver and could somehow slip off the narrow path and down to the rocky depths below. Anyway, we were driving up to the top of the mountain and the woods were so dense that I could hardly see three feet into them. It was at this point when my oldest stepsister, the only one old enough to drink, said that she had to take a piss. Kenneth slowed down and let her hop out of the back. A female family member I didn’t recognize went with her to make sure she was safe and the two walked down the path some way so they wouldn’t be seen. Beforehand, Kenneth was driving so fast that small pieces of bark and dirt were flying everywhere from under his wheels and I kept thinking that we were going to die.  Now, I was relieved: the peace and quiet were a welcome change. That is until Kenneth decided he had waited long enough and drove off without my stepsister and the other girl. You know, just casually leaving them in the woods. I told Marquelle that that was kind of rude and asked if we were going to go back for them. She said that they’d find their way back to the camp eventually. They did not. In fact, they were missing for six hours and no one went out to find them. When they finally made their way back, people just mumbled a “welcome back” and continued on with their camping activities.

So what were these camping activities my new family liked to partake in? Drinking. Really, that was all they did. Sure, we had a campfire and made smores, but I got the feeling that we were doing that especially for my sister and me so that we weren’t completely bored. That proved to be unsuccessful because most of the camping activities my sister and I partook in were sitting and watching other people do stupid things. My stepbrothers played beer pong until darkness enveloped the entire campsite. Larry, who was a bit older than Kenneth, got so drunk that he disappeared into a tent for most of the night. (The next day I learned that he was throwing up a lot of that time). When it was time for me to go to bed, I couldn’t sleep. I always had trouble sleeping in new places because of a fear of something bad would happen to me in my sleep. This fear was amplified by the fact that I didn’t have my dreamcatcher with me. I used that thing for everything and entrusted my life with it. I was just lying down, hoping that I would eventually fall asleep. I employed the old tactic of counting sheep, except I could only think about how cute sheep were and got distracted while counting to five. I then listened to all the strange noises the nighttime animals were making while my sister was sleeping soundly next to me. I could hear the familiar sounds of owls and crickets, but only God knows what else was living in those woods. Between all of nature’s racket and the occasional snoring fest, I never fell asleep.

Day two of the camping trip arrived and I was trying my very best not to fall asleep at this point. I’m pretty sure to complete this mission, I drank all the soda in the cooler and started eyeing that beer as a secondary source of energy. Mind you, I was only in 2nd grade, but I’ve got to start sometime, right? I didn’t end up drinking beer, but I did end up doing something kind of sketchy.

My stepdad wanted to teach my sister and me how to shoot a gun. In the past, when he told me that he was going to get me a BB gun for my birthday, I thought he was joking. Now, I realized that he was serious. I didn’t want anything to do with a gun; I thought they were evil and only caused death and destruction, but my stepdad’s words about me swam through my mind. I was a weak pushover who would surely get used in his life because of how soft I was. So when he handed me a gun, I took it. I was too scared not to. The entire family took turns shooting at empty beer bottles that were placed on tree branches. Immediately behind the trees was a vast lake that seemed to stretch for miles for its width. The length was different because if you squinted your eyes, you could make out the shore on the other side. There was another family camping there. However, my stepdad didn’t trust my sister or me with a gun so he took the gun back from me, did most of the holding part, and let me aim it. If I was way far off, he’d just correct me and everything would be fine. I missed the first two shots. Even though I wasn’t expecting to hit any of them, I was still competitive and wanted to at least hit one can so I could say that I did better than my sister. The recoil wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be since I wasn’t really holding the thing. Anyway, I was aiming the third shot when- “EVERYBODY GET ON THE GROUND. EVERYBODY GET ON THE FUCKING GROUND NOW!” My stepdad ripped the gun away from me, placed it on the ground, and harshly whispered at me to kneel down, which I did immediately. My heart started to beat quicker and quicker, but something told me to look at who was making that noise. So I stole a glimpse at the police officer behind me who had his weapon drawn. I couldn’t stop looking at him. This is the part of the story where you all will expect me to end it with some sort of tragedy. I mean, this is textbook: a bunch of black people, a couple of guns scattered about, against the police? Someone’s going to get shot, right? Well, someone did get shot at. But, it wasn’t us. The police asked something along the lines of “Who’s in charge here?” and my stepdad went up to talk to them. I feel like he tried to guilt trip because he stressed the point that there were kids here and the police were scaring them. Even though it seemed like guilt tripping, he wasn’t wrong. My sister was shivering on the ground about 10 feet away from me. The only good thing that came from my stepdad talking to the police is that we got to know why they were there in the first place. Apparently, it was the people across the lake. They called the police because they believed that some people on the other side were shooting at them. After figuring this all out, my stepdad decided that police presence kind of puts a damper on camping, so we packed up and left.

My mom greeted my sister and me with a friendly screech of “AHHHH MY LOVELIES ARE HOME. HOW WAS THE TRIP, LOVELIES???” My sister looked at me and I looked at her. “Fine” we replied in unison. My stepdad seemed to like that answer as he gave an affirmative grunt and walked towards his room. My mom’s enthusiasm was honestly quite off putting as no one really talked on the trip back. We were all thinking about what had just happened on our trip and if we should tell anyone. I felt that this was proof that my new family was dangerous and not to be trusted. Obviously, if they could not stop the police from showing up when a little kid was around, they could not take care of and account for a little kid’s feelings (You know, despite the fact that he had five other children). My mom would eventually find out what happened on the trip and I believe that was one of many things that led to the decision of moving away from my stepdad.

I recognize the taste

A mix of orange juice and regret

Grenadine interlaced

And something else that I forget

I can hear the crash of waves

Soft sounds of music through the din

And I feel the gentle spray

Of salt and sand upon my skin

As I slowly get my bearings

I’m puzzled by the warmth

The sun’s rarely so glaring

In the winter, in the North

A heatwave, I surmise

But it’s rather unconvincing

When I open up my eyes

The sunlight leaves me wincing

My apparel suits the heat

Tacky shorts, Hawaiian shirt

I stumble to my feet

Suddenly on high alert

This is not what I had on

When I left home the other day

My shoes are also gone

And my hair’s in disarray

And I may be incorrect

(It really wouldn’t be a reach)

But last time that I checked

My suburb didn’t have a beach

A group of people pass me

They appear to be Hispanic

And I regain some memories

Which send me further into panic

I had gone out to a club

I had been chatting up some guy

I should have sobered up

And turned in for the night

Instead I drank more fruity drinks

And accepted more champagne

Until he asked me what I’d think

Of a ride aboard his plane

I said yes – that’s my mistake

Because it always is the rich dudes

Who decide they’re gonna take

You to Mexico then ditch you

You’re worth more

than this organ trapped in my chest

whose voice no longer sings

of grand escapades throughout the stars

and prismatic bubbles

whose skin,

feeble but mystical,

illuminated your eyes

with unadulterated bliss.

Those eyes,

now saggy and tired,

will witness the birth

of a truly breathtaking star.

A star who will partake

upon a journey

to navigate the universe.

A star whose curiosity

unlimitedly expands,

and gruff asteroids

and silky moons

will treasure your innocence.

But its time

to swim amongst the cosmos.

Your eyelids speckled with iridescent stars

so everybody knows you are coming home.

I have to leave now,

I’ll be off on my own mission

trying to find the strength

to tell you

that I’ll see you tomorrow.

Soul,

what color would you exude?

With endless possibilities,

would a hue outshine the rest?

Maybe deep down they have their little civilization,

waging war

and swimming through the dense sea of mania

so a hue shines a bit brighter than the rest.

Maybe if I talked to my crush,

you'd ooze swaths of orangish-pink

as my heart bleeds for affection.

A battle would commence,

a navy blue and embroidered purple tinges:

the fear that my heart will sizzle with just a few words.

Even though fear plagues my actions,

you'd see a kaleidoscope of emotions

ranging from the yellow hue of euphoria

to the stark whiteness of despair,

a color so blanched that it stains my eyes with misery.

Each hue shines their own light upon my heart,

mixing together to make my soul sparkle.