When I read your author bio
I want to know if you are brown like me.
I want to know
If you can understand the happiness
Of the autumn wind.
But also
If you have been confused for being the tourist
Instead of the tour guide
In your own hometown.
Have you doubled over
On the 6th of the month
And lain in your bed
Praying
You don’t have to wash the sheets
Again
For the third time that day?
Have you been so angry
Because you weren’t sure
If the price was right
But know
That the man’s smile wasn’t?
I want to know
If you have struggled
With saying just the right words
So that
You know what you mean
But the other person
Thinks you’re agreeing with them.
All this
To avoid
The discomfort
Of not being like them
Not thinking like them
Not hating like them
Not praying like them.
When I read your author bio
Don’t make me guess
If your skin turns ashy
Without the cocoa butter cream.
Unless you write
Like how I talked
When I lived in Brooklyn
Wearing my big hoop earrings
With my favorite wide legged jeans and crop top
My bangs hiding my eyes
So when I said,
‘Sup
And did the up-nod
I could pass with my friends
Thinking I was some cool shit.
Unless you can capture that
In your first few lines
So that I would know
Without a doubt
That you get that
All-American point of view
Please tell me
What shade you are.
Because if there isn’t a picture,
If your name is that bland-from-no-where name,
Or the you’ve-changed-your-name-to-fit-in name,
Or the you’ve-taken-your-white-husband’s name
(Because we all know if they were your Partner, you would keep your own name so your parents won’t know)
If your author bio
Doesn’t say “where you’re REALLY from”
Then how will I know
If you can hear the tears
When the colored leaves fall?
©️ iido 2019
I Do Run 