First Generation Ghost

If you don’t see it, you don’t have to think about it.

Don’t think. That might remind you

of the world existing just outside the borders

of the manufactured frame you’ve been given.

The multi-hued world people like me live in.

Of course we’re still there,

inside your balance adjusted frame.

Otherworldly ghosts moving inside your scenes,

turning the smaller gears you’ve eschewed -

the gears that keep a pulse of a nation smooth.

Though my first cries were made on this soil,

I was reminded my place was with the ghosts.

“Be quiet, so you don’t scare people

With your arcane Latin tongue.”

So many hoops to jump through

to fit the definition of a woman of substance

yet feeling more insubstantial as I go through every one

to occupy a solid space in the world.

I’m too tired to jump them.

I reject being silent. I will tell my own stories.

Let people squirm when I write

the stories in my blood and sign my name

in letters larger than John Hancock’s.

The world may be unready for more ghost stories,

but I'm ready to tell them.

Song Choice: Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) - The Hamilton Mix Tape

This poem was inspired by the prompt given over at Imaginary Gardens With Real Toads: On Poetry, Writing & Metaphor - Dreaming With Stacie. Stacie asked us to look around our environment and create a poem about something see/ hear/ smell using an extended metaphor. The Hamilton mix tape (as well as the Hamilton soundtrack) is on heavy rotation in my home and the song Immigrants (We Get the Job Done) had just come up in my music shuffle. The line "America's ghost writers" is still one of the most brilliant things I've ever heard, especially in the context of the song. It's hard for me not to feel inspired every time I hear it. So I didn't fight it and created this poem.