The Complexion Chronicles: “Aja”

4TH FINGERSTUDIOS

To the root

The drip of the fruit

How does the burning cream flow more than the water?

The burning and yearning it causes our sisters

To not look like our sisters

As if other cultures did not look down on us already

Like we all live in huts

And those who do are starving

Fuel the stigma that we still are hungry

While they continue to take our riches

The beauty of our skin continues to the west

However, the west identifies with just the skin

And the kidnapping over our ancestors

But never us

They will never identify with us

A Kente does not make you one with the “Motherland”

You are not the enemy as we are not entertainment

Or the inferior

Or even superior

Wanting to touch where you came from is welcomed

Just come with respect and a guide

The beauty of us is stronger than what they say about both of us

Bind our love

Bind our pain

We long for each other’s land to stay

But we stay in our place out of fear of each other’s rejection

We bleed the same blood

Out of the same skin

Under the same sun

By the same God

I will not reject my sisters

Of other misters

But I will not replace my own who can’t see

The beauty of the same skin as I