The Quadroon Girl: A Long-winded Rant by a Misguided Black Girl

Peace and civility are temperaments reserved for the unburdened and privileged. My existence, though not the epitome of depravity, still shares the monotone voice of irrefutable agony. I sit, pen poised over the blank canvas of this paper, prepared to share every broken shard of my shattered being.

I wait for inspiration to cease my soul, manipulate my hand and pour through this ink the fluid emotions I have neglected for so long. Who am I...I am nothing...and I am everything. I am chaos and I am subtly. I wonder how a voice that has been quieted and choked by life circumstance, can find the strength to speak on its own behalf.

Life has been dictated. Life has been predestined. I am pre...disposed. Tossed away and forgotten before my significance can be defined. Yet They define me. I accept their perception because my vision has been eroded by heavy tears and unsung verses.

Truth is the version of this lie they've handed me; I open handed, bowed head and knee accept this truth as my own. How foolish is the child for which no one claims and which claims no one. She is left to cope with the whims of life and never taught to make of it what she wants. She is taught only to accept, never to invent or change.

She...I...become a victim of my environment. Clichés do truly fit as missing pieces to the puzzle when our own musings and theories are thought not good enough to articulate our meaning. Relying on the prudent and tried words of others prevents us from authoring our own literary tale, depriving the world of an opportunity to analyze our prose. For fear of criticism, I dress my words in intellectual garments and prance them around like the prize pony at the show, never once taking shame for my unnatural cadence.

I strip myself bare and allow them to take me through gyrations at the POLLS with promises of a better life... How then am I different from my sister who strips herself bare and allows them to take her through gyrations on the POLE with promises of a better life? The American dream was not promised to me, not when 4 score and seven years ago, my people stripped themselves bare and allowed themselves to be taken through gyrations by the POLS with promises of a better life.

Eloquence escapes me, there Is nothing eloquent about death except perhaps the curtsy a soul takes as it bows in the face of its own finality. Shaking the cold hand of the grim reaper while smiling with an audacity that says, "If not here, maybe my dreams will be realized on the other side."

I play with the distorted image of my reflection. Processing the extra bends and curves that morph my spirit into something that can only be seen in horror films. It is hard not to wrestle with the inherent human instinct to please man when man has done nothing to please me. Still I want to please man. Man has castrated me, peeling back the layers of my femininity until its surface is raw and painful and the form beneath it; callous.

They drink from chalice yet offer me no beverage to quench my thirst. They offer me no bandage to cover my hurt. They send me to scavenge for salvation at their church. He is my God. I am His child. We stand on opposite ends of Lady Justice scales and I ask him, "Why me?" Replies, "Why not you?"

Have I not placed inside of you the strength to bare what has broken the weaker back? What makes them submiss you dismiss, and with clever rhetoric and intelligent thoughts you evade their mind's captivity. You are not bound to their perception. You are not bound by their impression. I, your God. You, my Queen. Whom carries the weight of your own transcendent beauty in your own esteem. Accept your role. Adapt your story. The stage may belong to them, but the plot is yours to narrate.

At best these would appear to be random thoughts. Just the loud unfounded musings of an angry child. But each of these abstracts when gathered together create a horrifically beautiful painting.

~Kali~