Young Me (Poem)

I’m mixed Jamaican/British.

I went to school in London Fields, then Islington,

I was the only kid in class with a hearing aid,

I was the boy with the plastic ears.

The kids said I was black

because I wasn’t white like all of them,

but when I went to a school in Muswell Hill

the black kids said you can’t be black

look at your straight hair and nose.

Also, there were more deaf kids

and when they saw that I spoke

and that I didn’t know sign language,

they called me

mainstream.

The teachers said in class

I was always tuning out.

I remember that report,

Raymond looks like he’s a million miles away

but I was right where they saw me.

I like rap and I like writing.

I discovered a power in that

when I was six, my older sister bullied me

but said she was sorry after she read a story

I wrote about a horse that put down ponies.

My mum didn’t show me the school report

that said Raymond is incompetent at English

because she didn’t want to diminish the confidence

I had to put things into my own words.

my own words
came in the right colour.

Today its water under the bridge

but that water has been ice

its been steam

its been so much sometimes it doesn't know what it is,

sometimes it depends what someone else calls it.