the dress

yesterday i saw your ex girlfriend
and from looking at her
i can begin to understand why you want me to wear
a dress
why you want me to trade in my sneakers for heels
my fitted caps for bangs
my words for silence
my words are collections of knick knacks
crowding your living room walls and end tables
it's only a matter of time until you decide to downsize

maybe that's why you never bring me around your friends
you say they're not into "social awareness"

i always wonder do you see my light skin as a benefit?
my assertiveness just a turn-on?
since i go both ways, i must be fucking for two

outspoken women are attractive
but inconvenient when their words work against you
and you thought you washed out all that social conditioning

so paint this picture with me
if we were ever to go out with them
i'd be wearing that dress and
you'd be head to toe in the finest camoflauge
they'd never be able to tell we speak of
white-supremacist-capitalist-patriarchy

would this remind you money can't buy ancestral amnesia

what you fail to recognize is that our histories cannot be contained
by bleached textbooks and glass
you want to forget about
the desecration of our mental landscapes
so i try to remind you
about rice fields turned mass graves
rivers swallowing run off military waste
and the off white seams stitched into the gowns of gi brides

i thought your roots had meaning
more than something to be proud of during pacquiao fights
and definitely more than a row of books on your shelf
see i thought my roots had meaning

even though
sometimes i want to wear that dress
let's call it gold
i'll be your trophy for the night
your champagne glass, bubbly
intoxicating exoticism
will be you happy then?

cause these days i have trouble making eye contact with myself
mirrors are constant reminders of hypocrisy
my reflection locks me in
a mosquito in resin
the silence inside self conservation is comfortable
and tempting
a frequency all too familiar

tell me, do you feel safe
with me
when you recognize the stone binaries carved into their mindsets
will you still hush me when i speak
and pull my waistline leash tighter until i'm straight
it's only a matter of time until it rains
and i won't be gold anymore, just yellow