American Sonnet #6 [I often think of the 'White gaze'...]

 American Sonnet 6 [I often think of the 'White gaze'...]

i often think of the 'White gaze,' but i think of it

differently than Ancestor Morrison and others. 

in the eyes of the Whites, come mythologies and 

folktales to explain the world and people's around

them. concerning Melanated folks, the white gaze 

has long created swollen accounts, mythologies that 

bear no resemblance to actual Black/Brown lives, but

then again; when telling myths or folktales; does truth

even really matter?

(ain't it ironic that most Black/Brown souls learn of self 

and others through White mythologies/folktales...those 

anemic accounts, often disfigured and heavy with invention 

never quite putting finger to pulse of truth—just 

reinforcing such contrived tales. i weep. i writhe and seethe

in anger, in confusion, in everything in between IN 

the face of White eyes and White lies that tell us of our lives.