Brown

I am not black
I am brown like earth

I am not black
cause if I was black I'd be the color
of an evening skyline after the sun
sank from the heavens into leaves
of solitude

I am not black
I am brown like earth
and this may not seem hip
but I will hop higher and longer
as the world stares from its sclera
at my brown skin and whispers into wind
"He is black."

Perhaps I'm not human
cause I'm not black
white, indigenous or the like.
Its in the way I listen to the Bird
and the Wolf; how I refuse to be down
in a world that embodies down and out.

And it pays to be black
as it pays to be white.
I'm neither black or white;
I'm brown like earth.