Poetry By Mia Maisha

         Vlastimil Koutecký CC




Institutions 

They think they are

hurting me

Because they are keeping from me what I need to survive.

I have already learned not to want anything too beautiful.

It is important to know what you look like.

Everyone already thinks I am always asking for too much.

If I get what I want, will I still be black?

I am uncomfortable at the thought of 

Discrepancy.

I walk around with anything expensive and they think I stole it.

When my hair looks good people don’t think it’s mine.

I am ashamed because the black movement has come so far and I still can’t picture myself with anything better than what I am given.

In the dream where I finally get what I want, it’s not even me.
 
I dream of white people with nice cars, pretty houses, and perfect families.

Can I, as a black woman, afford (anything) 

To have standards?

We are not guaranteed that things get better from here.

I hold on to whatever white supremacy says is good enough for me.

What does it mean to deserve anything?





Strong black woman
 
Half of these people
 
think I’m better off dead
 
on the side of the road like a dog.
 
But the negro in me won’t give up.
 
We are always giving white people what they want.
 
I think I should live forever 

just to spite them.
 
I never feel like I’m going to make it to the next year
 
but then I do.
 
I am always stronger than I think I am. /
 
I am always as strong as they think I am.
 
Which is a problem.
 
I don’t want them to think they can just do anything to me.

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Mia Maisha is a 20-year-old university student studying law at Stellenbosch University in Cape Town, South Africa, though she is originally from the D.R.C. Her work mainly centers around the daily struggle black people have to endure in the face of black oppression and discrimination.
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