What Is My Race?

A Caucasian and Melanesian blend is my face. My tongue torn through the crossing of bloodlines, what is my race?

If I cut, red will spill, maybe the hate or shame of two worlds too hurt to choose a place. If I dream to drain the mixed questions awake on my fairness, I’ll die of disappointment.

I can reach deeper to erase the whiteness, I can reach deeper to erase the blackness, but my tears will remain colourless as my society reminds me that I am not full but half and quarter. Cut my soul again and a human will bleed.

Trace my DNA upon a ship to Tasmania from England, trace my DNA upon a canoe to Torres Strait from Papua New Guinea.

Mainland Australia, ethnically blended, multiracially coloured. Western and indigenous footprints found together to make me, it cannot be replaced.

No more silence will fill my mouth numb, I refuse to shelter shame in my skin, I am white and I am black, for I am the human being I choose to be.

~ H a y t h a m T r u e h e a r t