Welcome back for Week #2 of Zoeglossia’s Poem of the Week Series, curated by Leroy F. Moore of Krip-hop Nation!
Why are you scared of me?
By Lateef McCloud
As a child I knew I was
good,
adorable,
and safe.
Because that was what my parents told me,
that was what my grandma told me,
that was what my physical therapist told me,
that was what my teachers told me.
So I believed it.
I rolled around in my power wheelchair with my head held high
and knew I was God’s child blessed with promised.
But the vision that I had of myself
was not always reflected back in the eyes of others.
From an early age people used to stare at me
and bore their eyes in the back of my skull,
like I was some freak,
some monster who face is too grotesque to look at.
I grew up with kids who gawk at
My gangly limbs squirming in my chair
With an unease that never went away.
Kids taunts taught lessons
of how I was out of place in their space.
Malicious words sprung off their tongues
and crashed into my ear drums
with their hate and indifference.
Why you fear me?
Why you freak out whenever I am around?
What is it about the sight of me that makes you cringe?
Is it because when you look at me you see
a reminder of your own fragility?
The fact that one day your body will go weak
and die decomposing into dust.
Or do you fear me for my skin?
The smooth maroon in encasing of my body,
illicit fears that I might kick you,
hit you,
roll over you in my wheelchair.
Am I that nappy headed criminal
that makes you clutch your purse
as you walk passed me?
Do you secretly wish that a police officer
come and bust in my head and take me to jail,
Or better yet put a bullet in my heart
to stop the enraged monster you see me as?
Or do you see me as a freak?
A monster whose body
medicine cannot fixed.
Whose body cannot be loved,
cannot be sexually desired.
Cannot provide a woman
with her physical,
emotional,
spiritual,
and sexual needs.
Why does a woman emasculate me
with her gaze?
Do you see my body as only acceptable if rehabilitated?
If I work on a surgical or therapeutic way to fix me
Then you will embrace me with open arms
because then I will be just like you.
That may look like a happy ending to you,
but you will never know why you are really scared of me.
Lateef McLeod
BIO: Lateef McLeod is building his career as a writer and a scholar. He has earned a BA in English from UC Berkeley and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. He is four years into the Anthropology and Social Change Doctoral program at California Institute for Integral Studies in San Francisco. He published his first poetry book entitled A Declaration of A Body Of Love in 2010 chronicling his life as a black man with a disability and tackling various topics on family, dating, religion, spirituality, his national heritage and sexuality. He also published another poetry book entitled Whispers of Krip Love, Shouts of Krip Revolution this year in 2020. He currently is writing a novel tentatively entitled The Third Eye Is Crying. He was in the 2007 and 2016 annual theater performances of Sins Invalid and also their artist-in-residence performance in 2011 entitled Residence Alien. In 2019 he started a podcast entitled Black Disabled Men Talk with co-hosts Leroy Moore, Keith Jones, and Ottis Smith. The podcast website is www.Blackdisabledmentalk.com. More of his writings are available on his website Lateefhmcleod.com and his Huffington Post blog, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lateef-mcleod/. Some of his community service work includes being the co-chair of the Persons with Disabilities Ministry at Allen Temple Baptist Church and being the vice president of the Leadership committee and executive board member of the International Society for Augmentative and Alternative Communication.