Thrift - Original Poem

By Jasmine Green

I am donating all of my body parts to non black women

I am freely giving them away

There are of no use to me anymore

They are not damaged, they are slightly worn

But I can promise you they are worth more than gold

On the right frame

Don't be afraid

Take my blackest body parts

Take the parts where the skin looks like fertile earth

Take every milliliter of my melanin

Inject it among the masses so long as they still pass

Pluck every follicle of my wooly hair

Knit it into the scalps of women who want more but not "too much" volume

Peel away at my lips

Press them to the mouths of women for whom it will be sexy to sport lips like mine

Shave away every slice of thigh, butt, breast, hip

And sew them onto lighter bodies

Share my eyes among those who can turn pain into the art you'd buy

Gift my lungs to women who's loud voices filled with prideful breaths won't define them animalistic

Give my trachea to women who will never have to whisper out of the fear of scaring their coworkers and colleagues

Transplant my tongue to women who's attitudes are spicy and not savage

Rip away my pounding heart for the women who's passion doesn't have to be hidden for fear of looking angry

Take all parts of me

Grab every clay and sienna inch

In exchange, I only ask that you leave my neurons attached

Stick my sullen brain in a vat

So that when those parts get admiration

I can finally feel what love of them feels like

So that I will know it was never those physical traits but it was their vessel

My body is artwork hung in the wrong museum

Not wrong because the museum is wrong

But wrong because you think it is

It is not your preferred or premiere

It has never been the trend any year

It has always been the color to replace

What can be the new black if you never loved black in the first place?

No, I don't want it

I don't want these parts if they can only be admired through exception

Not the taboo, not the taste, not the "I don't usually do this", not the "I don't usually like ones like you", not the "you are my first", not the "you're different from the rest"

Just the acceptable

Just the accepted