Four's-skins

The colour of my skin is not supposed to mean anything,

And yet it does:

It carries a history of a whole nation made up of warriors.

The colour of my skin is not supposed to mean anything,

And yet it does:

It carries on it and within,

Rivers red, flowing deep,

Memories of a people not meant to be.

The colour of my skin is not supposed to mean anything,

And yet it does:

It means to this day the black man is perceived as weak.

The colour of my skin is given a variety of meanings,

By the colour clothed, colour-less, on another

The colour of the skin on the other, abundant of meaning,

Always!

It means according to history and this story, my skin will always be a shade too dark compared to his,

But it also means that because of the colour of his skin;

I am filthy,

Deserve nothing better than the worst,

Belong in conditions uninhabitable, even to anything lost,

Incapable of any reason or acquisition of education,

That with the epidermal cells that were chosen to be mine;

I should not be anything but nine-times…

Lower than he who wears the colour of skin colourless,

That I am nothing that is,

That exists.

Hence, his need to not only dig my grave but lay me in it.