Disclosure

This year I performed my first poem and it was liberating. Not only because it was my first time but because I was with amazing people. I participated in a project produced and directed by Marcella Adams called Disclosure where students of color at the college expressed their feelings of loneliness, self doubt, stereo types, expectations and fairness as it pertains to White supremacy.

It was liberating to finally share my story and how I felt on a predominately white campus and it was exhilarating to perform a poem for the first time with my two best friends on the stage. Lets put you in the setting.

You walk into a dark black room with dim lights. The black seats are designed in a circle with the chairs facing the inside of the room. There are stands in between the seats one for each side of the compass (north, south, east, and west). The performers are sitting within the audience. The show starts off with each performer saying a line from our poem that represents the most important messages of their stories. Mine was “My brown hands became a color I no longer recognize as my own.” By this time the room has filled with discomfort and eyes are wider than ever, ready to listen. The walls seem to be caving in at the echoes of the stories as you hear about lack of opportunities for those who didn’t make it to college, lack of fairness, achievement gap, lack of respect, and neglecting of Black love.  By now, you feel overwhelmed while your shoulders cary each tear you have seen the performer cry. You look to the side of you and you see an audience member crying anf acknowledge that in this moment it is okay to smile, laugh, and tear up as the performer does. In the south part of the room you hear a voice interrupting the claps for the last poem that passed and you listen. And she speaks. And you watch as she fights through her tears and hopes that the light is dim enough so that no one sees the redness on her face or her knees shaking. And she begins.

You know what's the difference between a scar and a paper cut. 

A scar leaves a mark behind, and it reminds us of an experience we had. 

somewhere people can point to and ask what's that, 

to hear the story that comes with that imperfection. 

But that doesn't mean we wont  do it again 

because we enjoyed the danger feeling.

Because your brown hands could ruin the prettiest and most precious thing on earth

The brownness of your fingertips stain the purest white

its so inorganic that the stain is permanent

Unable to be forgotten by those who have been near it

Your touch everlasting

So promise me you will keep your hands to yourself

No Toces No toces No toces

I told you to stay away

You weren’t suppose to do that

The world is not meant for you to touch it, the world is meant to touch you in ways where rape sounds and feels like consensual sex

As if everything you have and everything you are is not enough to be heard or respected (all together)

As if you asked for it

A paper cut is different. It stings to the core because you never expected the paper you touch everyday to hurt you. It’s a result of a normal thing.While washing your hands you forget that it’s there only to remember when the water seeps through the open holes of the bandage you tried so hard to cover it up with.

Your brown hands should not touch anything but it should take in everything that touches you

Because that’s the best you will ever get

My brown hands settled

In a world that identified my fingertips as chains

Compressed together as if the world was a sacred place

And I will never be heavenly

I walk with grace while the heaviness of ancestry tries to tie me to the floor

I am Suffocated by the very things I thought of as precious

Mistakes

Vulnerability

And Voice

Yet you force me to participate

it’s 20% percent of your grade (two people sounding like a professor)

As if that’s supposed to mean anything

“I would like to hear your voice in your paper” (two people sounding like a professor)

I get my voice back, It’s a C

As in good enough to pass but not good enough to stand on my own

The note in red said I am available Mondays and wednesday

1:30 to 3:00

I am here

You say, I know you can do better

But what I understand is

I know you are teachable

You took my softness as an antonym for strength

You eliminate my brown hands and make them write white so I can pass your class

I’m sorry I meant educated

My brown hands became a color I no longer recognize as my own

Don’t touch it don’t touch it don’t touch it

Paper cuts happen when you try to do routines too quickly. Only to continue your routine again and no one will ever really notice because paper cuts are never as serious as scars, but who made up that rule anyway.

I am here, 1:30 to 3

Poet: Jamerly De La Cruz

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