Sable Rainbow: Black Artists of Tumblr

spectralwonder:

18 years ago

“You look filthy,” yells my Aunt
Dragging my resisting body
Onto the bathtub
She strips me
She starts to scrub
And scrub
Trying to undo
What the sun does that time of year
While my mother says nothing
While my tears run down
Patches of red

13 years ago

“All done,” says my cousin with a grin
I look at my reflection
Into her favorite compact mirror
And see a face covered
In a film of powder
Three shades darker than my own
“Now, you’re not so pretty“
“Just like me”

10 years ago

“Stop playing soccer,” says my father
“You’re starting to look like a village girl”
Sunblock that never worked
Resulted in words that stung
That I understood
That had history

5 years ago

“I look like this because of you,” cries out my cousin
“I’ll marry someone lighter than me”
“So my children won’t suffer”
My uncle looks down
As if apologizing
My aunt cries
As if ashamed

3 years ago

“Why do you keep going into the shade,” asks a friend
I responded immediately
In my mind
I want to be beautiful
I want to be beautiful
I want to be beautiful

Now

“Stop poisoning,” I say to the world
“You’re exquisite,” I say to my cousin
“I want to love you again,” I say to the sun
“Be strong,” I say to myself

jellybean-jones:

this isn’t poetry i’m weaving but a painting made of blood

there are no strings of magic that stick to my fingertips. just grease, and sweat, ghosts of what my hands could have done hundreds

thousands of years ago.

my wrists seem alive in the light and but dead in kitchen darkness.

feet away, but distances apart i listen to my mother stir black eye peas over the stove, these tiny faces no more than beans with blinded bruised black eyes.

she soaks the beans in broth for one

                               two

                                three days until they are soft enough to cook and eat

could a recipe for brown girls be written as so?

 soak yourself in darkness, one

                                           two

                                           three days until your tongue is rubbery

                                           and dull and your will is soft and mush

                                           and you’re easily to chew, to swallow.

my mother, she stirs and stirs until the beans could melt the moment they touch the inside of your cheek.

i stir and i stir until the corners of my mouth smile without showing sharp teeth. i stir in this kitchen dark, i speak the language of ‘sir’ and ma’am pretending a bag of sand isn’t sinking my voice down into cupboards full of Aunt Jemima pancake mix.

the dialogue of the lady that i was never meant to be.

                                      the blacked eyed peas are finished.

I study the pot—the contrast of the flesh tone of the outer edges and the black of the eye.

 pupils dark enough, they couldn’t reflect the pain of my grandmothers, my grandfathers.

these very same blacked eyed peas that sent my fourteen year old great- grandfather from his home in georgia to a train to kentucky, from a white mob itching to see a child hang from a tree.

i close my eyes.

The secret, my mother tells me, is patience that is how you get the perfect black eyed pea.

of all my flesh, of my all voice, of all my body. slice me apart and patience will never be curling in the marrow of my bones.

i open my eyes,

teach me how to cook love, mother. teach me how to cook love for people who only want to feast on hate.

 my wrists may feel dead in this kitchen darkness but i want to learn.

(Source: mpr1m3, via mpr1m3)

littlevein:

I’m still a young man, with much I want to learn,

and yet I feel so old, so worried and concerned,

for a future that I can’t be sure will ever materialise,

for a whole generation of kids like me who become further enticed,

they heard that life just hands out gifts, well what you heard was lies.

And the parents of all these lost kids, cry out in surprise,

“I raised him well, as best I could, I loved him and chastised,

taught him he could be what he wanted, and earn his way in life.”

And yet my friends don’t know the past, we are not blond haired and blue eyed,

we are not a people who know ourselves or of why our relatives die,

we stand still and allow others who don’t care to devise

a system we are told that is full of fairness and packed with compromise,

but is actually an unescapable death trap, itself cloaked in disguise.

A system, that to certain folk can only imply,

that our people are sheep, not in charge of our own lives.

If only there were a way to turn our backs, and watch its demise,

watch a system fall apart, whilst offering goodbyes,

a chance to stretch our weary legs, and from our knees we’ll rise.

I’m still a young man, with much I want to learn,

and yet I feel so old, so worried and concerned

for a future that I can’t be sure of if our people will cope,

for now it seems our eyes look up, I’m full of cynical hope.

kennyboss:

Half the things I wanna say, can’t even be said

I wish everything I thought culd be put in your head

Without opening my mouth you would know how I feel

But, its not gonna happen so I guess I’ll just deal

I see you with other guys and I see that you flirt

Like, do you like that sort of pain of that eventual hurt?

Apparently those guys make you feel good and all that

But, you cry on my shoulder kuz you know I got your back

Not to make you feel bad or nothin but you’re not good with guys

Kuz a good one is right here but you can’t see it with your eyes

He gives you kind words, wipes the tears, and hears your cries

As you complain about the cheating, deception, and even the lies

He makes you feel better as he tries to help you heal

How blind must you be to not see that his love is real?

I mean c’mon, it hurts him that you don’t want him in return

And as you start a spark with another his heart slowly burns

With a love and a passion that takes years to go out

He’s see’s your lil spark and watches the flame go out

Another one bites the dust is what this song is about

One day you’ll see the right man was here without a doubt

I know you don’t see it now, or have no interest in me

But you’ve already said and admitted you’ve seen greatness in me

One day I’ll be big with hella houses, jewels, and cars

But without you I’m left with nothing but love scars

Shit, in the future I see myself with you and that isn’t far

You know if I got to I’ll pick you up in my car and we’ll drive to L.A.,

The Bay, lay, down in a park, wish on a star, admire them from afar

As we see wish upon a shooting star, I’ll play my guitar, and say au revoir

To our old lives and hola to our new one’s debut

Lord knows what we’ll get into, the problems we’ll run through

I want to be there to buy your first tattoo, on your first trip to Peru

I just want to be there, kuz all that really matters from my point of view,

Is the combination that is me and you…