M.E.M.

White Pawn

Born white printer paper

with red ink printed on me.

White, noticeable indisputably white.

 

Fair parents and fair family.

Blonde hair and blue eyes

Unmistakably white.

 

Public school with all colors of the rainbow

To private with white, white on white, and off white.

Don’t forget that one brown or one black.

But mostly white.

 

Life-long friends turn to enemies

if you don’t continue to play with them.

My bubble shrunk and I no longer lived among a rainbow.

There’s bleached, alabaster, ivory, pasty, milky, Caucasian.

 

Because I was whitewashed by opportunity and privilege handed to me

I lost the ability to communicate with my best friend.

She would speak, but I would not understand.