I’m Right Here

By Leshun Smith

Can you see the person you’re facing?

I am the 6’2” inflamed keloidal scar of trauma

that you always seem to overlook.

Is it that if you look into my eyes,

they’ll reflect you once hanging me from a tree,

and the guilt of your inhumanity

will drive you to tears?

Or is it that if you fully acknowledge my

humanness,

you’ll be incinerated, and the lies you

circulated

will be obliterated,

leaving me most beloved and you most hated,

and you can’t take it.

That must be your fear!

You’d rather acknowledge me symbolically,

smile in my face, and give me honorable

mentions and disingenuous apologies,

instead of looking me in my eyes, seeing me

holistically,

and recognizing my story’s authenticity,

even though it may not always be clear.

Despite the lies you told

and the legacies you stole,

I’ve always been

right here!

Can you see me?

I’m right in your line of sight,

but are you looking at me

or through me?

Maybe you choose to focus on

my veneer of vanity

because the violence you project on me

passively

won’t allow you to acknowledge me naturally,

so you choose, rather irrationally,

to cling to the perception you developed

Haphazardly.

So I’m asking you—actually—

Who am I?

Do you see my face,

or can you see only my race?

You think the fact that I am in this place

gives credence to the stereotype that I’m

lazy, violent, hypersexual, and a

waste of space

and my being incapacitated deters crime and,

somehow,

makes the public safe.

Are you serious?

Willfully delirious?

But why aren’t you curious…

About my marginalization,

my systematic socioeconomic discrimination,

my adverse childhood experiences and

education?

What about my dehumanization,

the constant threat to my liberation

because your love affair with colonization

is perpetuated through my incarceration?