My father gave us two rules:

“don’t trust white people,

don’t trust cops.

Say ‘yes sir, no sir’.

Run when you can”.

And we always ran.

They’d ask us why we ran.

What did we do?

Why run if you did nothing wrong?

I wish I could ask them to look down at their hands and back at mine.

What was the difference?

They brandish a gun and their skin is invisible.

I hold nothing,

yet my skin,

soiled with a shade that has represented evil since the beginning of time.

Of course you’re afraid!

What if I stained you and your pretty little porcelain world?

Though I think you forgot

that it was formed from the blood of my ancestors,

a still beating heart that is aching for our lives to matter enough that you let us walk on by,

Still breathing.

India Arriola 

This poem is written through the perspective of my father, inspired by conversations I’ve had with him over the years, and very recently, as to what he’s faced throughout his life.