LIGHTER SHADE OF BROWN...

I am the lighter side of brown

Detached from the shadows of my ancestors,

I speak of a growing absence in a foreign tongue that should not be
understood in my homelands,

Yet I am Under-stood by everyone

And no one.

I know not.

I am apologetic, apathetic as I dare to stare across the room and not
know where I sit or stand.

I am holding my breathe in hopes that I pass out, so that they pass
over me and not see the ignorance that was bred in me,

It was my bread and milk for me.

I am reading, prying, trying to learn more from secondary records,

Research the rights to sound less white.

But as I speak, my tongue flips out, trips me up,

And I am face down.

I am embarrassed that I am a disgrace,

"Girl you aint even a race."

The lighter side of brown

Left questioning who I am.



I am the darker side of white,

The tour guide that leads people to ask

"Babe, where you from?"

"Lady where were you born?"

I debate about Maori rights

political fights,

Samoa's plight

Temuera's re-arrival to Shortland Street on a bike.

I am offended when I hear the white girl/boy on the street refer to
herself as a "nigger,"

And he says he hates the "coons."

I am trying to play it down to blend in

But I amp it up with a Jeff the Maori impersonation.

I am dividing time between

Whare and home

Fale and house

Suga, e kare, oh you...

So that I can slip into the right shape and colour at all the right times.

I am letting my curls ever expand,

So people are less likely to question

"You, whatever, the Islands?"

I am living off the experiences of my brown friends,

So I am able to inter-grate and inter-relate and
hopefully inter-lace their race

But this race leaves me out of breathe,

In this undistinguishable place

Looking at this face,

Trying so hard to define... defy

one of my girls (tarah ah kiau-rudolph) poems... hope you enjoyed it!