It is a Black girl's birthday somewhere.
Her hair is in two big cloud-like puffs with
coloured beads that jingle every time she moves.
Click-clacking as she turns her head on a swivel.
She is not worried about
Her brother
and whether or not him having his hood up will make a difference
in the eyes of others.
It probably won't.
Or what it looks like if he idles on a street corner for even a second to tie his shoe.
She is not worried about
Her mother
Or her father.
She is not worried about
what is scrawled in bathroom stalls or etched into desks.
She is not worried.
That is not what this is about.
It’s about her sitting at the table smiling and swarmed by brown bodies.
They are singing
Are you one? Are you two?
Eating each syllable, a whispered prayer for something good.
To her it sounds like a ticking time bomb.
She’s a master at pretending that
that is not what this is about.
Everything is okay.
She closes her eyes and blows out the candles. She’s just turned nine.
It feels like there are too many brown bodies out there and
not enough birthdays.
Nadine Telesford
Grade: 12 / CEGEP I
Martingrove Collegiate Institute
Etobicoke, ON
“This poem is about how young black children are conditioned to be worried. Childhood experiences, like birthdays, are tainted by concern because of the world we are growing up in—one where the colour of your skin dictates how you're perceived and can put you at imminent risk. I wanted to highlight how that realization follows you, even when you have something to celebrate. ”
Bio
Nadine Telesford is a Grade 12 student from Toronto. Her work often intertwines her lived experiences and perceptions of the world around her, capturing life in the written word. When not writing she’s likely lost in a good book or scrapbooking.