To be black in a world of preconception is uniquely frustrating

As if the color of your skin depicts the person they are seeing

Or perhaps not a person but a thing

An animal lost in a future due to its history being stolen

Stripped of one but left with a clipped wing

Forced to walk down a path that’s inherently broken

I get told I don’t act black as if there is a template for it

I get told I speak “well” as if diction and a black color are a bad fit

And a lack of broken grammar with a solid vocabulary

Shows signs of an education they tried to keep from me

Opinions are based on a media that never consulted anyone

Twisting reality and then asking me to conform

But if I do then I am considered just another “one”

What is a soul to do when prejudice is the norm

I grabbed my pen as a sword as I stepped on the battlefield

The ink is my armor and my paper functions as a shield

I am swinging at an army of stereotypes

Cutting down preconceptions left and right

Their blades penetrate my patience but I still fight

In my back are the whispers of the fallen poets who used to write

History stands tall as their general, as racism is written across their chest

And I am still trying to get to their king, till I do I won’t rest