I Am (Or Kujichagulia) Poem by Maya Reid

I am
a Black Woman but that didn’t really matter to me til college.
It’s becoming more and more important to me every day.
a lot more self-conscious than most people would ever believe. I hide it well.
young. I’ll turn 20 in 33 days.
a shopaholic who never buys anything at full price. Also,
a scholarship student who spends her money on shopping sprees.
too stuck in my own ways. I hope being a Sociology major will help me see
through eyes not mine own.
addicted to music.
a Princeton student. I don’t necessarily like the way this makes people think of me.
more perverted on the inside than most people will ever know.
an individual who has an apostrophe in her middle name and tries doggedly to ignore this.
deeply conflicted about whether to wear my hair naturally or to iron it straight
but I am entirely unwilling to kill its beauty with chemicals.
also unsure if I like that having an afro is making a statement.
single. Still. But even though it sometimes gets to me I can really say I’m okay with this. Them boys will come around.
unable to sleep with socks on.
a lover not a fighter but that doesn’t mean I won’t fight for what I love.
overweight. I keep saying I’m going to do something about this that usually involves eating cookies.
learning what it means to have real friends and have the best teachers in the world.
going to make it a point to fall more and more in love with myself every day.