Without an utterance...

Do you ever walk into a room and feel like you just walked on stage?
A hush descends and all heads turn to look at you?
Yeah, I don't have that problem..not in a good way at least.

When I go anywhere, all people seem to see are my tattoos and piercings, alternated only by my chocolate complexion; and when they've seen, their minds explode into a cacophony of postulations about me that become solidified as truth when I take my seat and ignore everyone...

BIG SIGH

Let me digress a bit: has anyone ever said, "smile nah" when you're walking in the street? Or ask why you don't smile more or as the Joker would say, "Why so serious?" ??

Well, I don't know about you, but to me, the only people who smile all the time or more specifically, while walking the streets, are mentally unstable and as crazy as I am, I don't have a bed at St. Ann's...not yet, anyway.

I think it is weird expecting me to have a smile on my face all the time and if it's an attempt at conversation, better you ask me how I'm doing than tell me smile- I will certainly scowl deeper, watch you cut eye, steups and/or curse under my breath...

Back to the topic at hand:

Some lovely people seem to think that people with tattoos or piercings or BOTH, God help us, are either evil, demented, evil, or ghetto( now you're wondering how, yeah? Well, a lot of boisterous, cantankerous and bacchanalians, have tattoos and piercings, undeniably so- you see it everyday and everywhere in Trinidad and perhaps Tobago (I need to reference that one, I'll do a another post) (EDIT: Definitely in Tobago, smh)

Now

What defines one as being ghetto? Most easily (for those who lack the melanin and the brain cells) by having an extremely visible tan aka dark skin; dark as in burnt caramel right on to those who you can't even see what the tattoo is but you know it's there because...well, you hope it isn't a new skin disease...I digress

So me being of chocolate complexion, further aggravated by the sun, and having tattoos and piercings...well, you can imaging the sight I make! Not to mention, my weird assortment of jewelry (I've been told it's a contradiction to wear an ankh with those Jesus bands, by a man with a ras wearing soft clothes...but I'm the contradiction, yeah?)

Anywhoo, all these things give people the impression that I'm a ghetto princess out hunting for the next splitting competition but not before I pass een KFC to get dinner for my child fadder who passin een after he checks on his other child by his child mother (yes, I am overdoing it, but you know people think the weirdest things)

And then when I open my mouth and understandable English comes out, it becomes:

"Oh, I didn't know you were like that!"

How could you know anything about me, jackass?? SMH

Now this is one thing, I will have to deal with for a long time to come because everywhere there is someone who thinks like this or worse (the severe 'racists' and those who believe themselves bourgeoisie (and deluded enough to think them directly descended from nobility and royalty) will see me and have a field day based on my appearance, without knowing who I am..

Judging a book by its cover leaves for a lot of interesting pages to be left unread, but luckily there are those few who dare to turn the pages yet...