Last year as a freshman, I was given an assignment on poetry. We were meant to write about ourselves. I don’t remember exactly how the question was worded. For some reason, as soon as I started writing, I just started pouring my whole heart and soul into that small little poetry assignment — my masterpiece. It happened two more times in that unit.
To this day, I am unsure about why I chose to do this on this one particular assignment. Ironically, I was the first one to finish the assignment. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was writing, so I let my muscles and heart do the talking. I wrote furiously without stopping for 45 minutes. In what seemed like a split second of pure emotional focus, it was done. A painting in what felt like one stroke. My own little masterpiece, “The Gray.”
Excerpt from the poem
No one culture defines me as much as
My identity within the Gray
The in between
The not quite defined yet
Most people are like this
With statistics to show for it
But we still define by color of skin
With actions to show for it
These were the pent-up emotions. This is not the whole poem, just a taste. But in one fell swoop I managed to put in words what I felt about my skin, my race, if you can even call it that. It’s an ethnicity, a percentage, just numbers to me.
I felt and still feel that I didn’t really belong to any culture. I had met other mixed people before, but they all seemed to fit with one group or another very clearly. There I was, in the corner of that classroom, having a pivotal moment, a realization. I’d finally placed my feelings and why I’m so uncomfortable when people bring up cultural traditions and things they did that related to such.
My own little masterpiece, the Gray.
The moment
I felt so small, yet I didn’t feel like I could feel anything at all. I was numb to my surroundings. For the rest of the week, I thought about that poem. For the rest of the year, I asked for something, anything, like that assignment — Creative Writing Formative 2. One of the most game-changing assignments for me all year. I felt frozen, yet also that I was the only one moving. Fluid but static.
As long as you look it
You’ll be able to take it
And have actions to show for it
People will take you
Despite your percentage
And people will hate you
Because of your lineage
So in the end even if you are
Accepted into it
No matter your choices
Your culture that defines you
Will always be defined by
The people before you
The poem was as much a message as it was a realization of mine. Near the end, I had a second realization. I have a brother and a sister that are just like me. There are others out there that look the way I do and feel the way I do, even if they don’t know it.
Just because I can’t see them doesn’t mean they aren’t there. One day maybe I’ll find a way to publish it or let it out to the world to reach people that maybe feel the same way I do.
My own little masterpiece, “The Gray.”
Written by Malachi Brown
Inset Image Courtesy of Julie Kenward – Flickr (Creative Commons License)
Featured Image Courtesy of Jennifer Lantigua – Flickr (Creative Commons License)
