I’m not a visual perception
generated by the brain
through photoreceptors,
nor am I the color
that devours light
when the sun hides itself
behind the orb
where stars hang
in emptiness
and the moon floats
above seas of darkness.
Don’t call me black,
because that word
resembles what’s prohibited:
the apple that tinged Adam’s skin,
and scarred Eve’s silhouette;
monsters vomited up by night
through the tears of mist;
the heart calcinated by hate
and the mouth of the soul
that ruminates on vengeance
they plucked her warrior spirit,
usurped her kingdom
declared her children sons of perdition.
Don’t call me black,
that’s not my name,
my name adheres
to the whips that bit my back
with teeth of night.
It was a flower trampled by the beast
escaped from a snowy breast,
fleeing in carriages that
run through streets
of truncated dreams.
Don’t call me black,
Because I’m more than that;
I’m mortal
with dreams
in my veins
that declare war on failure;
a man upheld
by bones of love,
whose breath is poetry
and whose internal drumbeat
sounds rejoicing
Don’t call me black,
this is not my name.
Like you,
I too am human,
made by the hands of God,
created in his image
so that together
we might construct a heaven.
Don’t call me black,
call me #ALAFAT
because this is my name,
the one I received
when I was marked with water,
when my words mixed with tears
and my eyes saw strange apparitions
surrounding me
©alafat
A