Identity: The Unsolved Mystery

Skin is seen and your body
is the sign people saw as you.

While others in condemnation
still many in consolation,
all just the same:
they saw you as your body
your signifying skin tone,
your eyes,color of hair,
your "otherness"in that place
still so fixated on the "other"
that is not pale or flaxen,
blue green, or hazel gazes
-which many of them
are not.

I wonder now whether
you saw yourself
as everyone else did:
the exotic "other" or
by their standards,
their expectation,
gifted in science,
math or classical music,
I wonder now
whether you hated it,
resented people,
-for thinking it.

You got our attention
and you knew you would
but did you figure
on being "seen" (by the world)
the way others have seen you
all along?