DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE Poem: Return to Sender, by Sk the Desert Sage

Black male
As a young child, I imagined a jet black letter with a gold seal
I had trouble with taking things literally back then
Confused by the language
If I am black, why is my skin this maroon brown?
I’m not a piece of paper like mail?
I’m a person?
Premonitions of wise reflections

My father repeating the mantra 10 times a day
“Be yourself, don’t let THEM tell you who to be”
Who was them I wondered?
And as years grew
I saw what THEY told me I am
Every screen, every publication
This is a character
A scripted, contrived version of a false self
Holding a mirror reflecting upon a mirror
A infinity of bullshit that becomes even more granularly curated as the years and
mediums progress
And we do not
I’m not scripted?
I’m a person?

Hyper sexual hyper violence or safe castrated character
Clean cut coon, Alt edgy and angry,
or chill collected and suave
Just a few examples
All regionally and state variable of course
Look, Im a handsome dork that likes disco and Dvořák
Dilla and Dreamcast
Doom and doom metal
Tacos and Zydeco
I’ve been described as a mountain sage with nigga tendencies in a lifted truck
And 1000 other quirks from the sum of my living experience and the intrinsic qualities of
my being
I know some roots, and I want to pull them from the soil and study every coarse, vein
and split

I’m not a continuation of your 13th amendment chattel
I’m not your predator class
I’m not your charity case
I’m not your BBC
I’m not your magic negro
I’m not your voting block
I’m not your work horse
I’m not your shield
I’m not “so articulate and well spoken”
I’m not a brute
I’m not a hood nigga
I’m not a ain’t shit nigga
I’m not a thug
I’m not a statistic
I’m not a artsy nigga
I’m not a scammer
I’m not a respectable black man
I’m not a Uncle Tom
I’m not a oddity
I’m not a Oreo
I’m not a fetish
I’m me

Some days, I wish they would return me to sende