You,

You I cannot comprehend.

You are the human embodiment of all that is inexplicable.

You are the vast universe that humankind has yet to discover.

You are that moment at 3 A.M. where I'm exhausted but cannot seem to fall asleep.

You are the feeling in the pit of my stomach when I think about that night.

You are the thoughts that creep into my head sometime after midnight.

You are the paradoxical feeling I get in the middle of a sunshine filled day.

You are variable X.

You are unknown.

You want to remain unknown.

You want to retain that questionable air about you.

You,

Even after you have left,

You remain a whispered secret.

Even after you have left,

You remain

You.

She marched into the room, head held high-high-higher, heels click-click-clicking, stepping down, down, down the aisle, jumped onto the stage, and took her rightful place above the podium. She looked down upon the fully filled hall and not a single nerve was even slightly unraveled. She knew precisely what she was doing. She was more than ready. She surveyed around, dropping her eyes right onto every-single-head filling the room. All around. All around onto him. She stared. She forced him with her fiery gaze to lift his cowardly eyes off of the fucking floor. She pushed him to look at her. Made him maintain contact. Made him like he once made her. Like he once pushed her. Like he once forced her. Forced her to do things she was far, far too innocent to even imagine. He poisoned her with his bitter lies. He left her speechless, suspended in nothingness. She was so terrified. So humiliated. She could barely...could barely whisper the truth within the confines of her own skull.

Not anymore. She tore his restraints apart. She shattered the cage he threw her in. She would no longer be imprisoned by his irrelevant being. She was going to confess. Confess it all. Confess all of his abominations. She was through with his worthlessness. She stood on that podium, refusing to sit back down, and spoke every word of it all.

And he.

He was ruined.

Thrown out with the trash.

Thrown out where he belonged.

He-

He was nothing.

She,

She wore an aura about her.

Making the runners halt in their tracks,

Leaving the poets speechless,

And blinding the artists.

She,

She was not triumphantly strong.

She was not unprecedentedly intelligent.

She was not undoubtably beautiful.

But she,

She attacked more quickly than the Python.

She asserted more powerfully than the God.

She marched with a purpose bolder than the Emperor's.

She,

She was undeniably,

Unapologetically,

And unequivocally,

Herself.

And that--

Terrified them all.

When you say to me that you do not see colour,

It does not exonerate you,

It does not make you seem impartial

It does not make you absolve you of your racism.

My colour is my culture

It is the blood pulsing form my hearth and through my veins

It is the thoughts erupting from my brain.

My colour is my history

It is my family

It is me.

When you say to me that you do not see colour,

It erases me

It makes you guilty of ignorance

My people have been through genocides (and notice the plural tense).

They have been starved of freedom

They thirst for independence

My people do not want to hear that you are “colour blind”

It makes you a heinous slaughterer

It makes you a destroyer of heritage.

I ask of you

I NEED you to see my colour

See my history

See my family

See me.

But do not discriminate because of it

It does not grant you to separate

It does not grant you to look down upon

Because centuries and generations of my people

Have fought for the opportunity for freedom;

Opportunities that you utilize to demand your superiority.

To declare that you are blind to my history

Blind to my family

Blind to me.

What if he didn't leave?

You thought he loved you.

You thought you were Her.

You thought you were It.

All of It.

But what if It was a joke.

What if deep inside, his fear of commitment was nagging at every moment you two spent in one another's embrace?

What if past that embrace, deep deep inside, he never loved you.

What if his constant need to please others and his daily avoidance of confrontation made him stay?

What if he stayed?

What if you two still spent every waking moment of every day together in presence or in spirit?

What if your spirit was still chained to his presence?

What if every action, every choice you made was still his?

What if he stayed?

Do not touch her skin

For the simple act of appearing in her presence could lead to a trail of singed eyebrows and charcoal ashes of what once was.

Do not touch her skin.

Do not console her.

Do not comfort her.

Do not go near her;

Without her explicit consent.

Like fire,

Your proximity could leave you tender to touch,

Encapsulated in a combination of ashen skin and blisters.

However, like fire,

Your proximity could smother her,

Leaving only a shadow of her existence upon where she once stood.

Do not touch her skin.

Do not console her.

Do not comfort her.

Do not go near her;

Without being prepared for the aftermath.