Niga sum sed formosa
I am black, but I am beautiful
“You’re pretty for a black girl.”
“You’re smart for a black girl.”
“I like you, because you’re not like other black girls”
My black girl body has been starved
from validation for so long
That I feasted on the crumbs
of what appeared to be compliments
Wondering why my tummy
was still tied in knots of hunger
Craving for true admiration
Gnawing at the belief that
Somehow being separated from my
blackness was the highest form of praise
“Black is beautiful”
Words synonymous with the revolution
How long has the war been waged
against little black girl bodies
That we take the racial slurs
disgusied as backhanded compliments
As a form of peace?
To love me, Praise me, See myself
as anything other than
What could have been beautiful
but has been sullied by ash and smut
Is to be an enemy of state,
an act of treason to
believe that this black could be beautiful
Niga sum et formosa
I am black, and I am beautiful
