Melted Crayon
Life is like a box of crayons,
you never know what you’re gonna get
You got you’re black crayons
white crayons
yellow crayons
brown crayons
We are all crayon colors , different shades of lifes color spectrum
We usually hang around familiar colors, our sister and brothers
But sometimes we mix and combine to form new shades
Some are more accepted
While others feel socially rejected
Early on we are identified
Differences often magnified
Most you don’t have to look far
To realize what color you are
When someone asks who you are
You know what to say and do
And when I was a kid I used to envy you
See I remember in grade three
How much I dreaded doing a family tree
Embarrassed I didn’t know my families history
Kid’s would wonder, what’s his story?
I’ve always sworn my story wasn’t the norm
I told them the truth, as much as I knew it
As much as my grandparents and parents told it
But no matter how many times I practiced it
My explanation came out kinda sounding like this
“See my family is this.”
“But really my father is this, this, and a little bit of this.”
“And my mother is this, this, that, and a bit of that.”
I knew that they heard
Cos they always uttered these familiar words
hmm, interesting, never met one of you, wow confusing, I knew you were something
Yeah I’m something!
It’s better than identifying with nothing, I did that for so long
I’m still not sure of it all, of what makes me all
Some stuff my family can’t or choose not to recall
I tried to research my history and made up this story
The black crayon in me was a victim of slavery
Taken from Africa to Belize over 200 years ago
To cut down that valuable brown mahogany tree
The white crayon in my probably had a hand in this slavery
The brown Mayan crayon in me
Is a hero for first using the zero,
But this same zero is exactly what they got from the white crayon
For the use of their Mayan homeland
A land and people left used, confused, and bruised
The other brown crayon in me was also brought to Belize
Under the guise of being free
Far from India, his or her homeland
Then made to work on the white crayon’s stolen land
See My ancestor’s history is a forgotten mystery,
Wrapped up in a distant memory,
I live a stolen history,
Forging a new story
Defining my own census category
I’m a product of an English colony
That finally became free in the 1980’s
Many don’t realize that it left some of it’s grandkids with no identity
The only way I can describe the blood that flows in me
The skin that represents me
Is like a box of crayons
That melted and mixed under the hot tropical sun
And I am it’s creation
And I am it’s new son
I am that melted crayon