My hair
When I don’t do it
Dress it up
It looks so
African
It detaches me from my face
White
Is race dysphoria a thing?
Society doesn’t seem to accept mixed
Never want to consider more than half and half
I am a mix of a complicated ancestry
When no one asks questions
Rather start conversations
Calling me white
How do I respond?
Do I?
Correcting gets so tiring
Shock gets so tiring
My sister looks me in my melanin filled eyes
And tells me I ignore my black side
I don’t tend to it
I try to be Palestinian
Strong and supportive and political
I try to be African
Lotioning my body
Fighting the tiger that is my hair
The thing I love
Yet hate
Gives identity
And takes
Being multiple things seems impossible
People judge me the moment they look at me
Some notice my hair
Few notice my lips
Some notice nothing
And me I stare at the empty mirror
I know there are no Jewish features
But I feel I see it
I see the Palestinian in my skin
And face
I feel the Jewish in my bones
The Guyanese in my hair
That damned European that curse my skin white
The Puerto Rican
Spain
And Portugal
I feel and see all of it
But when I walk out of my house
As cold and as rough as the sidewalks
And streets I step on
No one else sees it
Is it dysphoria?
That I can accept my body and it’s features and how they intertwine
Yet when I go outside nothing seems like mine
My body is a temple
Strong, sturdy
Riddled with culture on its walls
My mind has a lock
In my open hand the key
Take it
Use it
The easy solution
Although it may seem
Impossible
Impervious
Unfathomable
Just ask.
Marcus was born in Brooklyn, NY and has never moved. He is rooted in his heritage from being Guyanese to Puerto Rican as well as a Palestinian-Jew. He won an honorable mention at CCNY for his poem “other” and was a finalist for the Ned Vizzini Teen Writing contest. Marcus likes to keep himself busy, joining LAMBDA’s Writers in Schools Poetry Residency, Stanford’s Abolitionist Legal Writing Workshop, and he founded a Student Led Poetry Residency at his school. Marcus’ friends describe him as goofy, entertaining, clever, and caring. He has four sisters; Jazmine, Sierra, Destiny, and Sofia. His sisters inspire him to work harder in school and muddle through adversity both mentally and physically every day.