Stuck in the Middle

**Entered in the Racist competition**


My mom was raped.  Barely escaped with her life,
wound up with me in her belly.
She decided to keep me, or maybe she just couldn't
afford that abortion.

There is no distortion or lies of love, not when I was born,
not as I grew up.
I learned early there was no place for me.
The kids didn't talk to me at school, not much anyways.
Couldn't figure out what I was...
"What are you?"
the kids would say.
And every day
I'd answer the same way.
"I am a human, like you.  Can't you tell?"
I'd grin real big, and act like it was a joke,
like it didn't burn my soul.

Mom had it hard, bearing a black man's kid,
her skin as pale as milk,
it just didn't bode well for her.

It wasn't her fault, not really.
I mean, she could have at least acted
like she loved me,
but then again, that would have hurt more
in the end.

So I am a little stuck in limbo,
not white and not black.
People look at me confused,
then look away, as if ashamed to
have been looking in the first place.
Like I am some kinda disgrace to them.

But I don't understand.
I feel, like everyone else does,
I bleed too.

I'm not inhuman, I am just different…
stuck in the middle,
half and half.