Wearing Your Skin

I want to crawl proudly into your skin,

the colors of onyx and burnished wood,

copper, milk chocolate and creamy coffee,

rose touches and hints of sunshine,

beautiful bones and proud shining eyes,

strength and resolve and perseverance,

to bleed my colors and blend with yours.

How else can I know what it is to be black?

Now I can hear your voice, feel abandoned

and alone, forgotten by others, I hear your cries.

I walk through the slung mud of desperation,

intolerant thoughts, setbacks leaving deep wounds.

Wander through desolate deserts - a no man's land,

please don't shoot, I want to live - justice and peace

just out of black man's struggling reach, as he musters

his dreams, casting aside the threatening clouds,

shifting shadows of all he's lost through no fault of his own,

bouncing moonless because of the color of his skin,

innocent scapegoat for the sins of white men is

cast out for no reason in sharp thistles of ignorance.

Just give him a chance to rise like phoenix in sky.

How else could I know how difficult black life is

unless I sense what you feel and slip into your skin.