Colored girl in grayscale
Some people
Feel the need
To live their whole
Miserable existence
In black and white
While I revel in the gray spaces
Reading between their lines
Learning to slay even along the margins
But we expect nothing less
from the child of maroons
People who descended from mountains
And before that rain clouds
we are the alchemists who fashioned silver linings
People who created lightning and thunder
Brainstorming is our birthright and inheritance
We radiate brilliance in every shade
So you keep spreading your stories
About how rising tides lift every boat
My kinfolk lived through the levies breaking
My ancestors beyond the slavers’ ships
We will be here
Continuing to make love and miracles
Right here from the razor’s edge