When you are not typical

How dare you be different?

You clearly don’t speak our language.

You clearly look brown.

Yet you strut around the place like

you own this town?

Where does this entitlement come from?

This lack of bowing down?

Look at the rest, rubber necking

with their nods that look like no

when they say yes –

Why does your yes look so uncanny?

Are you faking your knowledge?

You little clown!

Isn’t it better to be in this county?

Bountiful and plenty?

Let me tell you that I visited the slums

of Bombay once – that clump!

You must be glad you escaped.

Oh don’t you dare frown.

My opinion is far superior, for

don’t you see my watch? That crown?

I can buy a house

in your country with that, write that down.

Yet, I’ll walk not those filthy roads

covered with slime.

.

I’ve slept many a nights crying in my pillow,

how is it bad to be born into privilege

educated like whites, in their shadows?

Shouldn’t I get praised rather than shunned?

Shouldn’t I also have the careful mentoring of

teachers placing students on racing grants?

The other brown girl got a push,

am I not good enough hence I’m shushed?

.

When you’re not typical, they say

your isolation will be your own fault.

For making friends here is like taming a colt.

How dare I be different, in a world

that wishes me to conform?

How dare I still keep standing

even after my legs were sawed-off?