Desperate Measures

What if I was never allowed to be? What if intertwining histories, blessed circumstances and two souls from two different worlds decided not to meet?

What if they feared what shade my melanin could be?

So this is what I think when I hear “You don’t look mixed enough.”

You don’t exist

You are not one of us

You do not belong.

Who gave you permission to dismantle an entire life with five words?

I wonder how someone I don’t even know think they have the power to erase the entire existence of my mother, my grandfather and their people.

You are calling into question the love, the effort, the tears, the blood, the hardships it took to raise a mixed baby, at a time when fitting into more than one ethnic category was “unnatural.”

I am just as human as anyone, but when I stare into the mirror, past my full lips and curly hair, I wonder just what “Not Black enough” really means to the ones claiming. I certainly was Black enough all those times I was called “Nigger.”

So if I am too much or too little of anything to you, maybe go back and recheck your method of measurement. Because I am just the color, size and mixture God intended.

I wish instead of “What are you mixed with?” the question was “How thoughtful are you?” or “How good is your heart?”

I am human. I am whole. Please see me. There are many parts that make me, me and they’re all relevant.

If He didn’t see me fit to be created, I would not be here.