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Prose of a Con

Poetry and Prose by Russell Wardlow

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Color’dBlind

August 4, 2020 by Russell Wardlow Leave a Comment

Stop saying you don’t see my color

You are NOT colorblind

Nobody is

Why would I want you to be

I want you to see me

I’m looked passed, through, and assumed too often

My protests go largely unheard

I’m acknowledged most when I fit a stereotype

When you hear of crime, you see me

Even if just a mental picture

When you hear me get excited, you see me

But not as a normal person

Rather a rambunctious untamed animal

When I’m angry, you see uncivilized aggression

You don’t see a person allotted emotions

You see validated yet quieted implicit biases-

Plausible deniability-

So my cries of fouk are shunned

You see a prison as answer for me

Frankly, I can’t be a regular human being in your eyes

My sobering human moments

You see less a person and more a ‘thing’

A beast with too much terrain to roam-

Needing to be reeled in and controlled

You tell me to calm down

Chill

Don’t be so loud

You talk to me like child therapists

With a “1 2 3 breath intonation”

As if training a wild animal

With your superior logic and reserve

Believing I’m genetically incapable

You’re even more outraged at my wrongs than that of others

When I do wrong, it makes sense to you

You aren’t colorblind

My color makes you blind

Filed Under: Culture, Love, Trauma

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Prose of a Con

Prose of a Con is a collection of Russell Wardlow’s prose and poetry written entirely behind bars. Through writings on family, spirituality, freedom, love, justice, redemption, and vulnerability, Russell seeks to show the humanity and hope of individuals like himself who are incarcerated.

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