I am aware
that my mood is a pit,
sometimes hollow, other times
darker than melanin.
The physician probes,
pale apathy fuming from barriers
forming a pied crux
at the center of an examination room.
A competition of
who can ask more clarifying questions
commences, as tension fills and seeps
out of every scar on my black skin.
One day I am an underling,
another, an unchecked raging drone.
Sometimes I am gluttonous,
other times willfully indolent.
Today, I am what I am not,
and I receive what I do not need,
including another reason
people may fear me.
Delvon T. Mattingly, who also goes by D.T. Mattingly, is a writer from Louisville, Kentucky and a PhD student in epidemiology at the University of Michigan. Learn more about his work at http://delvonmattingly.com/.