Color Poem #35

I read an essay exhorting white people to
come out and say I am white
which it turns out is hard to do because

we’re taught to see our own race as no race
as the default state of being
as normal which is a big part of the problem

part of the system we must set out to break
I am a white person
I have a race and color that exist in the world

I’m on the pale end
of the spectrum of
white people colors

not that very palest
almost see-through
porcelain teacup hue

but maybe two shades
darker about the tint of
aging cheap paper in an
old paperback book with
a lot of light pink added in
plus that undertone of blue
running beneath the surface

because half of humans blood is racing around inside our bodies
unoxygenated and bright blue all the time though we never see it

image source is here