Mixed is a dirty word. A constant reminder of two separate things forced together.
A bastardization of purity.
Did you know you split me in half
every time you utter that word?
Disoriented
Essence/less
I have to ask myself
Which part of me was thrown in
First?
Diaspora or kinship
Kinky hair/light skin
Better yet what higher power put the combination together?
Willed me to live by giving me a name.
What gives it away?
Where do your eyes move first?
I don’t think you see me. I am personified questions. Everyone else has the answers
White is the combination of all colors
Black is the absence of color / no color
I am generic Person of Color
where do I fit in the spectrum?
Racism is pure symbolism
Questions asked and answered
What does Black mean?
What does white afford?
Lost in translation
Hailed as mixed,
A so-called solution
Fluid mixing producing a post-racial future.
Vapid vapor
An ethereal being
Conspicuous while being invisible
Violently erased in a
Black/White dichotomy
A mere smudge
that nags, as it is neither clean
nor clearly Marked
Oriented in the occident
Accidentally accented
Where should the emphasis
go?
Tightly scripted performance.
Restricted expression,
This isn’t my story,
Tell me who I am.
Landlocked
In a Fetishized Fantasy
Stripped of all access to myself.
Call it protectionism,
Call it survival,
But never call it revolution
Mixed is heterography
Life respelled for easy consumpshun
mi-ˌse-jə-ˈnā-shən
Conceived and conceptualized by Others
Unauthorized / Documented
Private property set loose
Branded, not free
I am Object subjected to personification
The Story is the only thing that keeps me alive
Keep reading
I have to keep writing
Otherwise, I will…
I’ll…
I…
.
Vincente Perez (He/They) is a Black Mexican-American performance poet, scholar, and writer working at the intersection of Poetry, Hip-Hop, and Black digital praxis. They examine the ways that poetry and Hip-hop narrate life otherwise and approach poetry as a research methodology and an object of study. They are a PhD Candidate in the Performance Studies program at UC Berkeley & hold a BA in Anthropology and Comparative Race & Ethnic Studies from The University of Chicago. They are a 2021-22 Poetry and the Senses Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Arts Research Center. Their work has been featured in Poetry.onl, Digging Through the Fat, Association of Internet Researchers, River and South Review, Abolition Journal, and more. http://www.vincenteperez.com/