As a person of color, engaging with white people is always a complex situation — whether they are malevolent or not — because of history. Therefore, beginning to develop a more than casual connection with a white person is especially intricate, because perhaps you are beginning to look past that history. But if you do look past it, do you forget those who were oppressed by white people, because you alone are deeply trusting one? Interracial relationships are always difficult, and this poem explores how white and black relationships are even more onerous.
He is blonde and blue-eyed.
A visual offering of my historical oppressors.
A face like my killer but with hands that comfort me.
He didn’t do the slaughtering of ancestors.
His face does.
But this is something that I don’t usually feel.
My heart works with him, and I thought it never would.
This interracial intersection has broken my seal.
But when I look at him I see history, and he loses his appeal.
Surreal dreams of a life in idealism,
Mom doesn’t approve.
Harsh sneers of undisclosed criticism
What am I to do? I’m waiting on his move.
White and Black go beyond the folds of color.
Does this matter if I feel he’s my lover?
If so, I can tell that there will never be another.
