Mundine, bleaching cream

I was 9 years old when Anthony Mundine beat Danny Green 

             The first time i remember seeing a brown person on TV 

                          Saw a brown person win something

His confidence spoken about as arrogance

             All our stories told in a tone tokenistic

             All our truth, twisted until extinction

                          All my heroes 

                          painted as villains 

They won't write about us 

So, i guess, someone’s got to

Young brown boys grow like me i’m sure of it 

Like how i know those who write the news don’t know 

That i’m as derro as it goes 

Houso homes on Watto’ road 

We grew up fighting to stay afloat

‘Dole bludger’ some kid spit - huh.

‘Immigrant’,

‘Mail-order-bride’ of a mother

‘Mutt’ of a kid, ‘runt of the litter’ 

Not white enough not brown enough either 

There's no light at the end of the tunnel 

             There’s a spot light on a microphone 

                          A stage 

                                      with my name 

                                                   written all over it 

Riddled with second generation understanding 

Of how cruel the word home can be

A protest. A megaphone. 

A pipe dream,

A pipe dream i’m swinging in the rioting 

Watch me now, how I’m dancing 

This is my favourite song 

Revolutions drum 

I know all these words and i sing them perfectly 

I broke my jaw on this rhetoric that left me starving to feel

Maybe i’m still beautiful, now with a mouth like a shotgun 

They don’t know what I'm about to become, huh?

Swinging haymakers like i’m Mundine, 

Even if we 

kiss their feet 

They will always

Hate us

No matter how progressive we think we are it’s still patronising 

Our stories aren't celebrated no matter how much pity is given

A chorus of cicadas are still white noise 

We paint on our faces to smile,

Might as well bleed out our melanin

Every moisturiser in the Philippines contains bleach 

Oh how long this narrative of polluting beauty

It could be a fluke that we made it this far

It is also magic that we are still here 

You’ve got to keep going, bloody knuckled, broken ribs 

I’ll hold your fist up, even in the midst of this 

Life is the prize,

             Life!  is the prize.

Keep breathing, keep swinging 

When the bell sounds, 

The fight has just begun