Black, No Sugar

Mary Orji

You love chocolate—

you love dark chocolate,

the darker, the healthier, right?

Mmm, yummy, you say.

You love coffee.

“I could not live without this.”

Black. No sugar. No milk.

Power in a cup.

You praise these things—

rich brown, rich dark—

loving them for their shade.

Did it ruin the taste?

Did it?

You love the cookie in Oreos,

scraping the cream because the cookie is better.

The cookie is black.

Or are you blind to it?

So tell me,

why can’t you do the same for me?

I am Black.

I shimmer sometimes

like stars at night.

I glow other times

like the first ray of the sun.

So why do you let my skin tone

make me the monster in your story?

Why tangle my beauty

in the ugly depths of your heart—

the yin of your existence?

Why can’t you look at me

the same way you look at your cup of coffee—

black, no sugar, no milk?Are my emotions the culprit?

Why don’t you drool?

Oh wait—

you do drool.

Only when my skin tone

pleases your fantasies,

dark and perverse.

So when will my skin

stop being your pleasure

and start being

simply human?

Ah, I get it—

You’re jealous.

Where the sun makes me sparkle, it burns you.

The night—my camouflage—

is where you stick out.

And I came first;

you are but a product of my existence.