Brown Boy
By Nashmia, Year 12
Slurs roll off the brown boy’s tongue, almost second
nature.
‘I’m black enough,’ he says,
As if some words don’t carry the weight of the world.
Laughing at himself, he hopes that the others won’t
notice how dirty his skin is.
Throwing away lunches so the smell won’t label him for
the next week.
‘You’re pretty,’ he smiles, ‘for a brown girl.’
Of course.
Because my eyes mirror his, and he could never love his
own.
This poem, Brown Boy, is an excerpt from Sweet Dreams, You. a poetry collection written by Nashmia in Story Factory’s Year of Poetry program. In this program, young people commit to attending workshops for a year and write their very own poetry collection, which is professionally edited, published and launched into the Sydney literary landscape.