Deonte Osayande

Microaggressions

To be told you’re so articulate, to hear
how smart you are as if you’re not
supposed to be, to be told what you are

despite your opinion, to hear a welcome
to the performance poetry world instead
of just the poetry world, to be told how

you’re rare to have come from your
environment as if that is a compliment,

to hear how you’re a tiger, endangered
all the time, when you just want to be,

to feel the impact of microaggressions
when nobody else can feel them so they
don’t believe you about your tragic pains.


Deonte Osayande is a writer from Detroit, Michigan. His first full collection of poems is entitled Class with Urban Farmhouse Press.