My co workers wants me to spell my name
He just met me
But he reckons I'm a good worker
And wants me to keep working for them
"Oh, your name is spelt so simple.. I thought surely there'll be some extra 'Z's and 'X's in there?" He tells me
I make a joke to dissolve my discomfort. The joke goes over his head, just like the casual racism did with me.
He laughs.
I don't.
I feel too sad to laugh.
When I tell my coworker that I like to work with my hands, he tells me that he "does everything with his hands ... because [he's] divorced.."
the same co worker sees my tongue piercing, he asks me if I have one on my genitals too.
"I'm not hitting on you by the way", he later clarifies. "I'm just sexually harassing you.." he laughs.
The irony thickens, when a couple hours later he says "oh, you are one of those flamboyant people" as he interrupts me singing Celine Dion to myself.
I'm too sad to laugh.
"Yeah I am, and proudly so" I tell him. He shuts up.
I'm too sad to laugh.
My melanin, even though it doesn't have enough extra consonants in it's name, still boils in ethnic rage under my skin, with enough strength to bash both these co workers skulls against each other's, one hand each.
My ethnic rage, looks like my broad hands and bulging shoulders as I rip floor boards and roof sheets off the house we are demolishing, as everyone on the worksite stop for a second and stare, before they get back to their tasks.
My skin, hardens with pain and gets darker with grief, I get better and better at communicating, standing up for myself, and holding my ground.
A part time job that I never get paid for.
A work expense I can't claim tax on.
My trauma boils and spills as it leaves third degree burns on my skin,
Every scar healing a shade darker
As if violated by the ultra violet of the harsh Australian sun
Leaves me wounded and burnt,
Burns a hole on the true blue fake leather of my Australian passport.
With a helplessness that aim to retaliate
With a naive innocence, that fantasise to traumatise,
I am again, too sad to laugh.
In the academic journals, sociologists say humour is tragedy plus time
With given enough time, all suffering should equate to a comedy special,
So no wonder when I talk, the whole work site laughs, when I'm happy I sing and when i out work every man on sight, both in vision and on the ground that I stand on,
I'm STILL too sad to laugh.
So yes, no wonder, when I do that, I dance, my brown little dance, effeminant in white eyes, flamboyant in their comprehension
So no wonder,my extra letters, they spell courage and minority-joy in the dents my steel toe boots make against the sheet metal
So no wonder, my wet curly hair spells "redemption" as they cling to my white bathtub
As I shower at home after work
So no wonder, that they cling and attach,
For their dear life,
With all their melanin,
Refusing to go down,
Down the drain,
Into darkness,
Into the black abyss.
So i say,
No wonder
That my flamboyance
My perceived effeminence
Isn't spelt with ANY extra letters
Infact
Not a single one
Too many
F
L
A
M
B
O
Y
A
N
T
All these
Letters
Not a letter too short
Still dances on that roof
In the wind and the sun
On off days
On public holidays
Not a single Makita radio blasting techno on sight
Unperceived
And uninhibited
It still dances, and dances, and dances,
In joy.
In brown, ethnic, joy.
Brown Sparky.
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