Being approached by a frat boy because he has to fuck a black girl for initiation

**DISCLAIMER** This did NOT happen to me BUT it did happen to a student here on this campus. When I heard of her story, it moved me to write about it. Enjoy



Maybe it's the hue of my skin,
Or the slant in her eye
Or the curl of her hair
That the most utterly offensive yet deeply "affectionate" thing they could call us is

exotic

Like we're some wild plants growing between the cracks of pavement
That's been so smothered by the cemented ignorance that crush us to the earth

But they're somehow surprised we exist
Impressed that we can take the womanly shape of a flower
That the roots of my veins bleed into and soften the soil
And I grow and thrive, and breathe, and glow
Even when the world around us is barren and cold

I am a tree
That can bear something other than strange fruit

So they call us exotic

Like we're on some foreign display
Eyes peeling off the hairs on our skin
Glaring at us like we're in humane
But they're so captivated that they can't look away
Fascinated by the way my heart beats
Alas, she breathes!
Alas, she feels!
Alas, she thinks!
But wait, I am!

I am human


But Because of the ebony hue of my melanin, the slant of her dark brown iris, the Spanish in her curl, tight tongues that unfurl, the drums in her hips, the plump in her lips, the depth of her womb, the warmth of her blood, the screech of her cry, the roll of her thighs

They reduce us to that little word

exotic

Like the dancer

The ones you'd probably assume my mother to be
Because slipping and sliding up and down that pole
No longer has to be to make the ends meet
But just to be featured on another line of
Some song or video that glorifies the culture of
Defiling a woman's body rather than praising it

Like her pussy is some peregrine dreamland open and waiting to greet her clients with bliss and ecstasy
You'd rather a vixen than a reigning queen
To take you to Magic city and fulfill your
every dream
In the seams
Of your jeans

So they call us exotic

Like some sort of twisted serendipity
Like we were put here by mistake
But somehow still living
And what a marvel it has to be!
A black girl who's still breathing
Where's her baby (daddy)?

I am not a mistake.

So they call me exotic

Not Precious like a gem you'd guard with your life
Not Delicate like the suppleness of velvet
Not Beloved because the ghost of her beauty haunts you everyday
Not Worthy because she is much more than you.
Shit, not even Pulchritudinous because beautiful is too basic of a word and I am no "basic bitch"

I am much too complex of a being to be reduced to such a basic idiom

To be reduced to the color my skin reflects or the gleam it projects to protect the ivory sun from my ashes that, when risen, are a threat to cover the whole world with this "exotic" shade of which I am made out of.


I am not exotic
I am a Woman
Neither simple nor plain as that

I am a Woman