By Abby Adigun
Because it was in five letters
That the beauty thriving in my ebony
Pores who boasted the love of a dying sun
And a rising star, was put to rest before
My irises of immigrant hopes and aspirations
With a hint of fear.
I became no more than the color of smoke
That filled my neighbor’s home
Who had to watch the living memories of family
And love disappear before her very eyes
Again.
My individuality was stripped from me
With the whisper of a single
Word
No longer was I the daughter of a Nigerian princess
And a Ghanian scholar
But a point in an argument,
A tragic statistic, and an error in history.
Even as I look at the word today,
Foreign on my own tongue yet too
Familiar to my ears, and a curiosity for
A little boy who has begun to look
Twice in the mirror,
Black
Has risen from the ashes
To be more,
To become
More.
The Idea 