Biracial Surrender

If I am tolerant
of friends
who define me, if I
accept those definitions,
remain mute
as they forget
who I am
and choose what I should be,
become what little they think
they see of me,
I deserve to be stripped
of my own definition.

If I allow
smug anthropoogists
to set my name and limits, 
remain quiet
as I am measured
and fitted, let them
titrate my blood
and unstring
my helix,
I deserve
all the pins and tags
they stick me with.

If I allow bureaucrats
to grant me my ID,

if I allow my company
to give me my straitjacket,

if one drop makes some
one thing
and one sixteenth makes some
quite another,

if how I grew up
and what I was called
and what made me smile
and what I ate and drank
and what I was told I was

and what I faced
and how I was shaped 
and how I was warped
and how I was cold beaten
and forged
are discarded
because it doesn’t 
show — 
if I allow myself
to be all theirs,

I deserve to lose
what little I’ve cobbled
from my shattered history

and shall not dare to be
what I am 
again.