Black Pen, Right

 

I wish I could have the pen in your hand.

Obedient pens.

They learn how to punctuate, use proper grammar,

And write the right word

Every

Single

Time.

My pen doesn’t understand

what it takes to be recognized

what it takes to have “talent”

what it takes to be “skilled”.

My pen only writes in her primary language.

Disregarding what I’ve tried so hard to teach her.

My pen lies to me.

She tells me that she “ain't fixinto do dat no mo’”

She says she’ll listen to me, she will write academically.

But when I give her a chance, she leaves me embarrassed.

Ashamed of where we come from.

I told her that they wont accept her this way.

She must pay attention to meter and rhyme

She must climb just a little higher than all of her peers.

Conform and prove that her work is worth reading.

I told her I’m proud of her, and her day will come soon.

All she has to do is right!

My pen lies to me.

She finesses her syntactical errors

Making jazz between blue lines

Streaming words of Ebonics from our hood

To later have me type and submit a paper

Free of my own thoughts.

The teacher frowns down on me

My face burns, black.

My heart crawls back into the ghetto from which it came.

When we get home, I dissemble her in anger.

I throw her into the confining walls

Fooled again.

A couple of sobs later, I put her back together.

She’s the only pen I’ve got.

My creative inanimate object.

And even though I love her, I know she wont change

So ill gladly exchange, for a pen not estrange to learning

How to write in a world

Where righting can be right.

 

Author's Note

frustration of a professor telling me Im not "grammatically correct" when he knew damn well I did it on purpose

Reviews

[Brian Aguiar]

Beautifully written and powerful. Great work.

[rt farris]

at some point we find ourselves, then we find our voices. it's not easy and it never has been. the individual in society: a lifetime of challenge. keep up the good work.