The ethnicity tick box3 min read

Neither did I fit in a box,

It was always other.

Because who’d think brown

Would be a mix of colours,

If you aren’t a tone

Of black and white

Or white and other

But what about?

The many countries,

That they don’t cover?

We’re a mix of this and a

Mix of that

Then they shout, ‘you’re a fake,

you know that?’

So we accustom to being one race,

When it doesn’t even agree

With our face.

Because half breeds or half caste

Is what we can’t relate.

Because our race divides more into a

Plate

Where an island is one day our

Home, but

Our tongues don’t match.

Or a native to our souls,

But

Our songs don’t hatch.

Perhaps a tribal

Yet we don’t attack at our

Culture

And embrace…

Who knows our race?

Yes this head cover,

Some say ‘we know what

You are’.

But how can they know,

When even we don’t?

There are stars out there with beauty

And grace,

So we know that we’re still valid,

When finding a race.

But it’s not a race

To find a place,

And yet we breathe as if

We need to hide

What we are.

Where we best fit,

Is into a pot of mix,

Some jerk,

Some raisons,

Some coconut.

Maybe, we are coconuts…

To our mother tongues,

Foreign to our land.

And yes, some think,

Everything fits into our hands.

Trying to be something

You aren’t,

Then you embrace and still you can’t.

Honesty is brutal when we tell you it’s true.

They will never accept you, unless you do too.

So my ode is be what you are,

Be it one race, two race, or three, mixed race star?

There are centuries in your veins

And galaxies in your eyes

If they don’t understand then give them a sign.

While mystery lies engraved in their words.

You know it won’t damage

The beauty of the worlds.

Where you intertwine like a prism art.

Belonging and identity is the creation of your heart.

Let them stare, whilst they

Mimic your accent of

Fluent knowledge

Whilst the match is still

lit.

The times will tell when times

Are rough.

Or when they judge you

Of who you

Love.

As you sit in

McD’s trying to chill

Really getting to the core of what life’s

About.

And how your children will be

Cultures times

A hundred more.

Souls like us dive

Into the shore.

And love who we love,

So one day we can say

To our mixed-race children

Today is your day.

For difference is beauty,

To be the same is the same.

We’re all golden colours, with our

Slight touches of brown.

When that form comes back to us

Soon.

They’ll have understood the words of

This tune.

No box will define what a world it can be.

Belonging is me.

Belonging is me.

Belonging is us.

Belonging is we.

 

Because some aren’t just white, black or green.

We are we. We are we.