Not A Stain, But A Root Poem by Emeka GOC

Not A Stain, But A Root


They see a shadow and name it a threat.
A history rewritten in heavy, dark ink.
They measure my worth by the sun I have met,
And fear what I say before I can think.
Where is your cliamed superiority?


But my skin is an anchor, ancient and deep.
It holds all the stories the world tries to hide.
The promises ancestors swore they would keep,
Are wearing this velvet, alive and inside.
The true storis hidden today will make headlines tomorrow


No pigment can carry the weight of your fear.
No prejudice alters the truth of my grace.
The mirror shows royalty standing right here,
Unshaken by laws that tried keeping my place.
Unjust laws functions in the court of injustices.


The store aisle is narrow, the footsteps are loud.
A gaze follows closely, suspicious and cold.
An invisible boundary drawn in the crowd,
Forcing a child to act quiet and old.
They check every pocket, they question the pace,
As if carrying pigment is carrying guilt.


A systemic tax on the lines of a face,
To protect all the castles that cruelty built.
But the light cannot fade just because it is trapped.
The glass always breaks when the truth starts to rise.
The map of my freedom cannot be unmapped,
By the narrow projection of limiting eyes.


They called it a stain, but it functions as root.
A canvas of starlight that gathered the sun.
They tried to reduce all the branches and fruit,
To a category where the damage was done.


But black is the color of fertile, rich earth.
The space where the galaxies open and grow.
They cannot dismantle the weight of this worth,
With words or with metrics they claim that they know.


The bias is theirs, but the beauty is mine.
A legacy woven in fiber and bone.
Despite every boundary, border, and line,
This skin is a kingdom entirely my own.


The Armor of the Mirrors memory
As counting the soil and stars above the Noon
Race is root, pigment is not stain.
Its a shame that people causes us this pain