Unkept

Unkept

Growing up, I trained my hand to be steady.

My hair to be tamed,

My words to be fluent

When I wrote my own name.

To cover up the crime scene

My mirror speaks for society

A reflection met with repulsion

Yet it’s all for compliancy

A beast to be caged,

Ancestors to be shamed

See a girl like me,

Be in the land of the free

With my hair out and tops down,

Old conventions grow to seed doubt

Concealing what was never unnatural

Oh, what we do to be unsurpassable

To disguise and distract their eyes from the cracks

For they peer close enough to reveal the unkept

In fear, you appear flawlessly-wrapped

Composed by an image, compulsively trapped

So hidden beneath the sleeves

I blend the smudges of culture in me

Until my skin begins to bleed

And the pain is but a fee

To be welcomed and feel worthy

I destroy myself with ease

Here I am, where nobody sees

There is change before the peace

A calamity to be seized

With desire to succeed

Colliding values render me

In the land of the free.