What color is your soul? Blackout

blackout of the original

You bathe daily in ignorance

with eyes that don't see past the radius of black faces

can't see the macrocosm surrounding your minute existence

looking at you as a spec of dirt staining an otherwise flawless alabaster society

When you look at my skin

like them, you see something alien

and it scares you

If only you knew

that you are my brother

Generations ago you watched our mother

violated by master

before you were sold to a new one

You never saw what became of me

And you still refuse to see

Therein lies the disconnect

Centuries later you're wondering where I came form

Looking at my skin

Suppressing its origin

Ignorance is bliss

But bliss is blinding

I wrote this for those who

choose sight over contentment

for those who know happiness does not exist without freedom

I wrote this because quitting is quieting

and love is loud

That's why we love with our hearts

The constant beating that cannot be ignored

Love is a uniting desire for which humans yearn

But we ration our short supply

Reserving it only for those who meet aesthetic requirements

What color is your soul?

Is it worthy of love?

Or does it deserve centuries of traumatizing bondage

Reviews

[ANTO]

I get the jist - but is there a limit on the number of words you can use Lizzie? Does the blackout have to be strikethrough - what happens if the rest is entirely redacted, i.e. unreadable? Does that take away from the 'leftovers' - (Dear God, leftovers - sorry, Lizzie)

The resultant 7-word creation is a great Tumblr-esque poem. I would definitely rate it if I saw it as a solo 7-word write. the blackout gives it something, like the news reports that the big twins censored on 'Good Morning Vietnam'.

Interesting.
:)

[Lizzie Mitchell]

Thank you. I'm not familiar with poetry on Tumblr, but I think you're probably right. Blackout poetry pretty much consists of finding words (traditionally on a newspaper) that go together and making a poem out of them by "blacking out" everything else on the page.
I don't know anything about word limits or how it has to be blacked out. I used the strike-through because it was the only way I thought I could show the original poem clearly in case the reader wanted to see the original. I try to make the blackout poem follow the meaning of the original poem. This is basically just an over-complication of an incredibly simple poetry form.
I would suggest looking at makeblackoutpoetry.com is you want to see what blackout poetry really is.

[ANTO]

Wow - thank you Lizzie. I appreciate your time and effort in responding - I do.
Thank you for the link too.
:)

[Lizzie Mitchell]

You're quite welcome! Thanks for always reviewing!