12: Asked

Why do I have

this feeling

I am never good

enough; I am somehow

fake, unsubstantiated. Where

did you draw the line, break

the paragraph

at my definition: learned,

at times, uneducated, disguised.

Confidence is not built in question,

so I have taken the mark. But

I know you stamp it

all over my vessel,

want me listing from port; last seen,

going down. Black American, Chicano,

Good Asian, Indian, Immigrant, Jew, undeserving,

unclean: Haven't we been here before in that book;

My questions are not yours

to answer, they are my privilege,

not constructed

by the laws of your language. Your definitions are thorns

in the hand of God, and my answers

will be the apocalypse,

anyway you have chosen to read it. Imagine me, all.