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[abyssmita]

Convincing brown parents to go with neutral tones for painting the house is NOT for the weak hearted bro 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[queen-asante]

ejucated immigrant

((AUTHOR’S NOTE: @eene-fangirl For the Fanfiction Weekend Challenge! I should probably wait to post this for Rolf Appreciation Month, but there’s a lot of Jonny backstory/headcanons in here, so I thought it would count. Basically, it’s a poem from Rolf’s POV but it’s technically about Jonny, or rather, Jonny was my muse for this.

I haven’t written a poem in Rolf’s ‘’voice’’ since 2014 but believe it or not, that one little line that Edd says in ‘’A Case of Ed’’ inspired the poem (you know, the one), and as I was reading Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, it produced said result. A turnip for your thoughts? I don’t normally write Rolf like this, it’s actually more like Rolf emulating Ntozake Shange for those familiar with her style. As an Indian Immigrant girl who’s considered suicide, that book changed my life, she’s my idol. Hence, the poem is written in ebonics and all lower case to pay homage to Shange (and I consciously dropped third person redundancies, it wasn’t a mistake). Three non-EEnE characters are briefly mentioned: the first one is Vanessa, my friend who’s half African-American and half Haitian. The second one is Ice, who belongs to my friend, Dani. Ice, in her world, is a black and white cat who becomes Double D’s pet. Rolf fears him because he’s not only black and white, but he shares the name of Immigration and Customs Enforcement by pure coincidence. Dani didn’t plan this, as she created Ice before she met me but she liked the idea of giving Rolf a reason to fear the cat, and so we came up with that story together. The third one is Dr. Feelgood who was my therapist, it’s not her real name, it was an affectionate nickname I coined for her in my years battling Bipolar Disorder Type 3.

As a closing thought, much apologies for the length, also tumblr’s going to mess up the format.))

‘’ejucated immigrant’’

dear gods,

i be 14 wit skin as rough as treebark & hands dat look old

i waz the dark skined immigrant wanting to bathe in bleach

Brown Black / Blue Black / Amber Beige / Bister Brick Bronze / Chestnut Chocolate Cinnamin

Copper / Drab / Dust / Ginger / Fawn / Ochre / Coffe Colourd Caramel

Tawny / Terra-Cotta / Henna / Sepia / Umbre

lookin in the thesurus eddward wit two ds give me when i come to dis country

everything spell Brown but nothing spell White

White sound nice like pearl like snow like milk like golden skined white skined light skined

honey dipped / lemon kissed / but begging for ivory / fair frosted silvery ashen boy jimmy

your white hands on my brown skin

i waz the dark skined immigrant botherin to drag you round

you stand there like a closed mouth statue & you insult my way of life

think you know everythin / rolf just some ignorant third world peasant or somethin

but we be livin dis way longer than the foundin of your land

your country young my country old

numbers & poppy / it just to give you illegitimately born breeds of donkeys

somethin to hee-haw over / science say there no gods either but who know dat

you cannot contain lightning bugs in a jar

i waz the dark skined immigrant dreamin of shakin the mr presidents hand

the former mr president wit eyes like a tired old man & Brown his Brown like a mud bath

it really too bad you know / rolf like your former president

dat black man who dont check dixtionaries for validation of his blackness

he not so bad / he waz sympathetic to the plight of the immigrant but his hands tied

not blame him / he not god he not have all the power in the world to fix dis weather

dis cloud dat hang over your land & who the hell is perfect?

it really such a shame / i dream to see the Hill / see the pearly house painted white the place where he live meet him shake his large brown hand / one brown hand to another

cept i not black / rolf not have to be / not pass / rolf european he is white not bloodless

he not pass he not be white enough for your country

cept i be white on the inside look coloured on the out but i aint no coloured

under my skin i am more than a colour

whoever herd of white passing for person of colour

but suddenly i get to dis country & i be treated no different than jonny

so alls i got is coloured dreams

poor grate nano lived & died on silly dreams / well they not exist

there be only reality & reality not kind to the dark skined indigenous immigrant

no one know what i supposed to be / take a wild guess

indian pakistani mexican romani rolf herd it all & none suppose right

they only looking at my face / the outside the outside not matter

cuz i waz the dark skined immigrant not italian not irish but the other kinds

& no one will see unless rolf cut open his veins & bleed

a Wood Nymph have my colour & if i check off the box dat say caucasian i get a funny look

from the lady sittin behind the counter wit the yellow nail polish & beaded eyeglass

spose if jonny do the same they wont believe him neither

jonny be good

yous see him dancin / wearin his stomach out / dark skined bare feet / swayin his hips

& grate thin arms but he not care dat he gots splinters in his fingertips

his nails turnin all black & blue & those chapped lips look like eyes starin out atchu

the gods make dis child the way he is

wit skinted knees & all & elbows pointed outwards readin you like a map

always wit the label on the left side

but he bootiful & he know it / beauty sometime come in the empty coffee can

not in the paper lillies or plastic pearls

you cant make a silk purse from a sows ear / even if dat ear be made of wood

of wood widda crayon drawn smile

jonnys mother the madwoman in the attic

rolf be certain jonny the wood boy some kind of elf from the passage of Valhöll

the mother of the Tree Sprite she not like rolf / well she not like any child it seems

weepy jimmy-boy & rolf invited to jonny-boys abode for a meeting of the Urban Rangers

& tho his mother never says so we feel she not like us very well

she never ast us to stay for lunch

even tho rolf personally would not eat a morsel of what these people eat

& we always been so polite to her but still she build walls

rolf believe she jealous of us becuz jonny likes us

she come out to the parlour / barefoot / flowers in her wild tangled mess of black raven hair

like yoko ono & wearing a long paisley skirt / she bootiful in an earthy sort of way

but she has a wild look in her eyes like a tigress

a violently insane expression like a german vampire dat make rolf think of bertha mason

she looms over her son like a dark older sister becuz they look so alike

altho her skin much darker / a deep chocolate brown / her complexion remind rolf of vanessa maybe she is haitian / she like the demon in nanas stories the one we all have widdin us

who comes out when we try too hard to be good children

she look at white as snow jimmy & myself like she disprove

either she not like us the uniforms or both

rolf forget tho these hippies wit their anti-establishment

they think every uniform represents what jonny calls ‘’the Man’’ & dats what it is rolf think

she not want jonny in the organisation

becuz she think it goes against their opposition to social norms

rolf could tell she wanted to ast us to leave / she not like jonny spending so much time wit us

becuz then he not at home meditating wit her or whatever it is they do

jonnys family is strange / they not eat meat & walk around shoeless

rolf has been called a gypsy by the children at school but flower child jonny seem to rolf more of a gypsy if there ever waz such a thing

he is almost ethereal / his family must be from a clan of faeries the kind nana warns rolf about but brown-skinned jonny seem harmless enough

i watch his mama put a daisy in the pocket of his jeans

i not know if his daddy be white or black but what difference does dat make

rolf understand it is important for a child to love their family no matter their faults

i know The Giving Tree still love his mother

even if she would prefer him to leave the Urban Rangers

of us three jimmy be the whitest of white jonny the blackest of black & i somewhere in between

but any one of us can walk into a puerto rican bar & start speakin spanish

& no one would know what we are

race too complicated & people too narrow minded / want everything boxed in

one day we waz layin on dat grassy knoll / jonny & i

where the trees whisper to us & we whisper back

cuz you know the boy talk to trees & i listen to his voice / & i be lookin at our hands you see

cuz we waz layin inches apart a flower between us & i tuck it behind his ear

then i look & see my skin only one shade lighter than his

tho the sun make me browner than i really be

out in the sun for hours & hours plowing & plowing the fields

by sundown i roasted coffee bean brown / as black as the inside of a chimney

& if i stumble into town any passing stranger would think i waz Black i mean African

id have to stay out of the sun for days to get my old colour black lest i wander round wit only the whites of my eyes visible on my sun burnt dyed rust brown brown skin

& hair so course youd suppose it come off a horses ass

lookin more like an American Indian than a White

i holdin the back of my hand up to jonnys now

how bout dat two brown hands one dark & one light but whos to say i not be a dark white & he not a light skined brown

dont you dare tell me what i am & am not

bitch dis aint no south africa where yous all can reassign us based on what you think

i aint no sandra laing but sometime i wouldnt mind bein black if it meant for you to leave me be

in fact ill gladly be whatever you want me to be but i am what i am

not black enough for black not white enough for white so what am i?

dont box me into Black & White / cuz in dis world brother dat not exist

im sorry as hell but i gettin real tired of bein called

an illegal / an alien / a wop / a gypsy / a guinea / a brownie whatever you want to call us

all your bigoted slurs clumping us together like we one & the same

dat fine but papers or no papers not define who i am

so uncle sam can take it & shove it

welcome to america!

i be having a long love affair wit your country & people

i also be having a war wit em

mama told me there are limits for dark skined immigrants stuck in dis light skined first world

we come over the border wit all the rest of them

wit all them people from central & south america

wit all them refugees from africa & asia

guess what we blend right in we look no different

look just like any other brown faced ‘’illegal alien’’

border patrol take one look at us & think we just like the rest

cuz yesterdays europeans are todays mexicans & middle easterners

coloured Sons of Shepherds gots few chances

what it like to be bilingual / to speak in two tounge

ah but to be fluent in one & not the other tryin to find any definishun in the dixtionary

in which i drop third person redunduncies cuz i only one person not three

& i only speak two language

you speak spanish?

no habla inglés

you speak english?

i dont speak spanish

one day the hat & head as one edd boy say oh rolf! youre so unejucated!

i think my ears deseeve me but i know what i herd

i wish to strike his milk honey cheeks full of nonsense

& say to him i am the ejucated immigrant you be warned about

dont talk to me bout ejucashun

i sale cross the oshun

i wash up on your shore

i lern another language

it wasnt easy

what you know bout ejucashun

all you know come from books & theories

at least i know where i stand

you are a child & i am old old old my hands notted thick wit veins like the roots of a tree

you say i sound angry / yea i angry but not as angry as you

cuz there nothing they fear more than a minority who knows what up

i used to be fraid but not no more

i used to fear the plainclothes agents in Black & White uniform

of immigration & customes enforecement / of ICE police

of eddwards Black & White cat name Ice on ICE

he must be making fool out of me to call a domesticated beast after homeland security

a cat in uniform because the gods make him so not by choice

like there be some purpose to it / i waz the dark skined immigrant you made fun of

i see what they do to the undocumented immigrant on the telly  

but now i not be fraid / becuz you cant touch me

so the grapefruit widda red ugly mouth & bleached hair sit in office now

damming all them people from ‘’shithole countries’’ / just as well but we here to stay

it not what i ast for but no use fighting it

& i will gladly pull the bookmarks from my english dixtionary

the one double d edd boy give me

no longer will i bathe in bleach / only use to washing dishes & floors

i not some bloody floor

‘’immigrant’’

at least i can spell dat  / i look it up in the dixtionary

websters dixtionary / who the hell is webster?

but now it marked up used copy wit yellow post it notes

i use it a lot to lern your tounge

i not smart but i sho as hell not unejucated / papa can tell me dat

i be in your country in first place to reseeve ‘’best ejucashun’’ like grate nano wanted

grate nano waz an adventurer / a dreamer wit big goals

he travell far & wide seeking fame & fortune

when he a very young boy immigrants from every cesspool in western & eastern europe set sale for The North / it waz always grate nanos dream to travel North

everyone say he more insane than a bovine wit mad cows disease

there no room in dis life for dreams they tell him / he prove our village wrong

when rolf eight years of age grate nano briefly left the Old Country to set sale for america

everyone say he be too old / he never too old for dreams

he wanted to find dat American Dream he hear so often about

spoken wit fondness by the tinkers who visit our land

he returned from his valiant voyage wit stories about what he seen

in the North  he said everyone has cars & money & television & running water

no one listen / The North the North they say dat is all you ever talk about

he waz a man who dreamed of a new life for his family & so he decided to send for us

& make a better life for ourselves after the plagues of the land had haunted our family for years grate nano promised us america he said youll soon be eating apple pie from off a china plate white picket fence / coca cola / santa clause / marilyn monroe / empire state building

it sound like a fairytale he spun a legend dat the streets waz paved wit gold

& we believed him for shining in grate nanos eye waz a dream & so here we are

rest his soul he wanted so much to buy us light & sun & clean wind of the oshun

‘’immigrant’’ waz a new word for rolf when he first come here

did not know after hearing the stories from grate nano dat he would soon be one himself

rolf not know what dat mean & still really dont

the dixtionary definishun say \ ˈi-mə-grənt \ noun. a person who comes to a country to take up permanent residence

\ ˈi-mə-ˌgrāt \ verb. [to go or remove into; in, into, and migrate, to remove.]

to come into a new country, region, or environment in order to settle there: opposed to emigrate.

oh sorry dat definishun not say we unclean people / flea invested vermin

sickly serpents who not speak english / greaser / sheenie

contagions of american society / incredibly dirty tramps fresh off the boat

so pervasive / such nonwhite filth / staring back at pitch black faces

not blonde haired & blue eyed / nonwhite skin only fit for dirt & waste work

mama papa kiss me goodbye i going to haiti

but it is what rolf is now it part of his identity just as much as the colour of his skin

just as much as bein a pagan / just as much as bein a male

just as much as bein the Son of a Shepherd

now rolf a new man living in the New World

i am an immigrant

sometime i wish i waz shug avery / bootiful fictional dark skin harlem singer

half man half woman / wit my large glittering masculine thighs i make an animal of men

maybe i have the courtesan complex

so i ast dr feelgood what my diag-nonsense

& she say poor soul you suffer from Stressed Shepherd Syndrome

okay so we all crazy in one way or another / it alright for some

of a mannequin in tears / of personal prejudices

im an unejucated farm boy from No Mans Land

im a poet who write in english

neisatnaf i isatnaf ne / ttim tetrejh dem gnyalp re lesgnel og gem tolrof nuh

rettenremmos i sirb ne mos rav ed / gem etlatrof nuh dro retsem nadrovh

etted tal eddejks rofrovh? / enneh lit gem trekided gej og enneh teksnø etrejh ttim

senneh enenyoø ås gej etted tla eddejks rofrovh

& this is for Sons of Shepherds who have considered suicide

fin