Skin Is Not A Crime

This part of our war

Before I feared the night

Told me the world reads color like prophecy

And mine was written wrong

La-da-da… relax, dear, don’t make a scene

Some shades belong behind the curtain

That’s how we keep the order clean

My mother washed me until her fingers bled

As if scrubbing could change a lineage

But skin carries stories deeper than water

And some stories they hunt like prey

A temple door closed inches from my face

The lock clicking like a final verdict

My god was inside, but I wasn’t

Wrong color, wrong caste, wrong name

Oh, darling, don’t take it personal

It’s simply how the world was made

Some of us rise with golden spoons

Some learn to smile in the shade

No need for anger, honey

You know we all have our place

We sip our peace on higher floors

While you wait by the staircase softly

Your comfort is built from my silence

Your smile is a weapon dipped in tea

Your kindness feels like strangling velvet

Soft, polite—

but it still suffocates me

Skin is not a crime

But you measure it like contraband

Marking borders on our bodies

While you wash your guilt with manicured hands

Skin is not a crime

But you read mine like a warning sign

And every glance you throw like a stone

Says I was born on the wrong side of your line

A child pointed at me in the market

Asked why my shade was “storm-colored”

His mother hushed him with a gentle laugh

The kind that slices deeper than slurs

A man in silk stepped around my prayer rug

As if my faith were dirt on his shoes

He smiled, said, “We all must know our roles.”

His god looked nothing like mine

His heaven had no room for my kind

Cha-cha-cha…

It’s nothing personal, sweetheart

We’re civilized—see how we smile?

Just stay a while whispered

You call it harmony

But it sounds like chains

You call it order

But it tastes like blood

You call it tradition

But it feels like drowning

You hide cruelty in your laughter

Bigotry in your pleasantries

You built a throne on our broken spines

And still ask why we kneel

Oh darling, don’t trouble your pretty head,

The world just works this way, you know.

Some climb the ladders they’re born beside,

Some stay right where the shadows go.

Why fight the rhythm written long ago?

Tradition keeps the world aligned.

We flourish in the sun up here,

While you learn patience down the line.

It’s nothing cruel, it’s nothing harsh,

Just how the colors sort themselves.

Some pour the wine in golden rooms,

And some are better left on shelves.

Skin is not a crime

But you punish it like sin

Caste is not a curse

But you carve it into our skin

Faith is not a battlefield

But you march across ours with flags

You crown yourselves with innocence

While we bleed under your tags

Why so serious, darling?

We meant no harm at all

Everything’s better when you behave

Everything’s peaceful

When you stay small

Don't you fear my skin?

You never touch my soul

If you judge our god

You never understood your own

And if my existence threatens your bone

Maybe it wasn’t a throne

Just a lie you sat on

Too long