Poem of the Day: How Lucky You Are to Be So White...

 How lucky you are to be so white

How lucky you are to be so white

Against you my chances are slim

What made you so superior?

When our shadow is the same, and we are composed of the same interior,

What made you decide that you shall defy that most high?

And exalt yourself above – Above me,

Where we have to document the first black to…

The daunting task of proving my worth,

A long train in each car loaded with oppression, restrictions,

All because of color distinctions,

How lucky you are to hold a color so distinguished

Product of the past causing anguish

Different dialect but same language,

Nigger! Nigger! Nigger!

Sending a bad signal to my brain as it transmits through my ears,

Piercing my cerebellum

Underneath-- a curse, spell, since the beginning,

Where are the silver lining and the decorated trimming?

Trying to move on but continue clinging to imagery of whippings,

Being sold on the block like a piece of rock being sold on the block,

To be fortunate, economically, physically,

We have grown however still enslaved mentally,

How lucky you are to be so white?

Ha, wrong, How unlucky you are to be so white,

I’m the same color of a King that dreamed,

She that freed over 300 slaves, Mrs. Tubman,

Yeah never would have foreseen a first lady that looked like her and me,

Like a caterpillar patiently waiting for its chance to become a butterfly,

Flapping its wings flying into a sky of possibilities,

Like a track runner that took off late, almost dropped the baton and still won the race,

Like a clock that blinks and blinks when it suddenly goes off and pops back on,

I keep going, despite the past we are here together interlaced like shoe strings,

Tied together through a struggling past

Neither of us are lucky to be black or white, but blessed to be God’s children.

How Lucky You Are to be so White

Kristyna Cochran