OFF WHITE, by Venessa Marco

Today's poem is by Venessa Marco, a performance poet from NYC. Listen to her perform her poem, Off White, below

I found a transcribed version on some page (see below) but you should really listen to her as I am not sure this is exactly the format in which she wrote it for her performance.

OFF WHITE By  Venessa Marco
They say I’m off white, high yellow, bright bright
I do all the passing
They say my body a light
Say real black and brown be shadows cast aside, grounded
An offering to the wildest darkened eye
Strutting around Gog given, like I’m God given
Like God done gave me all this sky
They say us light women be church
Real black and brown bodies be for little girls, birmingham black
When your culturally ambiguous, the world thinks you as middle ground
As unscaved, as no one’s daughter
You pretty for black, you not black enough
You better race, you exotic wifey material
Every white girl will fold to you, claim your skin a rude stain
Remind you that no matter how light you think you are, you can’t sit at their table
you ain't eating their food
No brown skin belly getting swollen off of no white folk
Every brown girl will fold to you, claim your skin baptised in holy ridden
Remind you that no matter how brown you think you are, you can't sit at their table
you ain't eating their food
Ain’t no light skinned belly getting swollen, its been getting swollen
By them white folks remember
You a footnote, a bastard child, your master done gone weary and got a field negro
Now you a house negro, all uppity and shameless
Shucking and jiving clean, that’s what you are
Golden baby
Ain't no black boy lynched, gutted, peeled alive spewing from your breath
Ain’t no black girl raped, taken alive spewing from your breath
When they look at you, they cannot see blood
You are what made it, a bridge of sorts
The marriage between murderer and quests
It makes you a casualty, you’re at war with yourself
When they look at you they cannot see blood
I think of my great grandmother, of her tired hands the way my hair is silly as hers
What of your grandmother, of the hept knot round her nape of her mutilated body
When they look at you they cannot see blood
What a privilege, to be a child of diaspora
Marginalized like the rest of them but too light to be thought of marginalized like the rest of them
Go ahead baby, play that light skinned violin
Cry them light skinned privileged tears
Death ain't coming for you
Death ain't coming for you

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About the poet: