turn me inside out

turn me inside out

time to clean

make sure u scrub

out all my gone fathers

white mothers

all the residue and upside-down smiles

tellin me death threats

tryna

cut out

my native tongue (s)

ripped out at the age of

laughter

melting crayons

doing times tables on the bathroom walls

till it slides down my throat

into my bottomless belly

that never belonged anywhere

I cant even speak this language

it ain’t mine to begin with

tell me where u come from ?

i say

it’s all gone

gone / gone / gone /gone/ gone /

I g0t no mo culture

it feels real nice when u get to the root

of how u speak

s-stutter 4 me

i can do it better

make sure i stutter good 4 u

then i might give u permission to cut my eyes 0ut

turn them into paper airplanes

dead grandmother hands

bein @live

has done

me

ni-nice

rite?1

My poems are honest and brutal. That’s because I’m angry. TURN ME INSIDE OUT is a homage to my

absence of identity–especially in America. That feeling of trying to grasp onto an identity that was never

yours. The inability to speak my truth in this language. This I think, is something many Black Americans

and multi/biracial people of the diaspora like myself feel. I wanted to convey that in this poem of anger.

Sisi — a writer and poet raised in Philly. I’m Freshman at Bennington studying French and

Dance, but, to be honest, I do way too many things for my own good. My favorite writers are Toni

Morrison and Sonia Sanchez and I really enjoy tea, and you can find me in the corner at college parties

drinking it in the corner. That’s as good as we get.