Pee is for Prejudice
by Zorina Exie Frey
1. Circa 2015
My coworkers and I Uber to happy hour in Coral Gables.
Nobody and everybody’s hood.
Cuban. Haitian. Turkish.
Mexican. Arab. European.
African? American?—me.
Tapas chased down with White Russians & reggaeton beats.
Slurred speech accompanies laughter & selfies.
Bar hopping adventure.
Blonde hair & Blue eyes strides
into America’s alley to pee with no tissue.
I, with a full bladder lookout
for the nearest proper public facilities.
2. Circa 2005
My coworker and I drive to a garage party in Niles, Michigan.
White people playing rap music
Cheers’ing beer bottles
Pabst Blue Ribbon testosterone
surveys Africa’s rolling plains.
Their eyes hunt my gazelle legs, my caramel-continent skin,
my sand-kissed lips, my
inner-fight. The lioness considering…
Blue & grey eyes scowling
Move, bitch! Get out the way!
Ludacris booms through whitewashed speaker boxes.
My music betraying me.
It’s ok. You’re with me.
Now, I’m the white girl in her hood.
Walking me back to my hatchback
She relieves herself in shrubs.
America’s front yard, with no tissue.
3. Circa 1983
We played Luke, Han, Leia, and Godzilla.
Eric had the Millennium Falcon.
He lived further down my white block.
Far enough for me to ask to use his bathroom. He refused.
I can’t. My father says because you’re Black.
To which I replied with a swinging closed fist. A reflex.
Since it’s frowned upon for me to pee in a bush
I rode my Big Wheel home to relieve myself.
Eric’s father berates my momma on her doorstep
flexing white privilege, Eric had a bloody lip.
Look what your daughter did! He hissed.
My mother’s 1930s mentality kicked in.
She picked a twig to whip me.
A crime now. Legal when whites did it.
4. Circa 1980
My block occupies all white folks.
My friends, Mark & Amy live around the corner
playing Star Wars with baby dolls.
When I used their bathroom,
I wasn’t allowed to close the door.
They watched to see if I pee’d black.
When they found it to be yellow,
Mark wiped the toilet seat with white tissue
Erasing my existence.
5. Circa 1974
I live in between two different worlds.
One Black.
The other white.
My mother’s light-skinned melanin tells me
Yankee blood swims beneath the bedrock of our family river
where some people pee.
My coworkers and I Uber to happy hour in Coral Gables.
Nobody and everybody’s hood.
Cuban. Haitian. Turkish.
Mexican. Arab. European.
African? American?—me.
Tapas chased down with White Russians & reggaeton beats.
Slurred speech accompanies laughter & selfies.
Bar hopping adventure.
Blonde hair & Blue eyes strides
into America’s alley to pee with no tissue.
I, with a full bladder lookout
for the nearest proper public facilities.
2. Circa 2005
My coworker and I drive to a garage party in Niles, Michigan.
White people playing rap music
Cheers’ing beer bottles
Pabst Blue Ribbon testosterone
surveys Africa’s rolling plains.
Their eyes hunt my gazelle legs, my caramel-continent skin,
my sand-kissed lips, my
inner-fight. The lioness considering…
Blue & grey eyes scowling
Move, bitch! Get out the way!
Ludacris booms through whitewashed speaker boxes.
My music betraying me.
It’s ok. You’re with me.
Now, I’m the white girl in her hood.
Walking me back to my hatchback
She relieves herself in shrubs.
America’s front yard, with no tissue.
3. Circa 1983
We played Luke, Han, Leia, and Godzilla.
Eric had the Millennium Falcon.
He lived further down my white block.
Far enough for me to ask to use his bathroom. He refused.
I can’t. My father says because you’re Black.
To which I replied with a swinging closed fist. A reflex.
Since it’s frowned upon for me to pee in a bush
I rode my Big Wheel home to relieve myself.
Eric’s father berates my momma on her doorstep
flexing white privilege, Eric had a bloody lip.
Look what your daughter did! He hissed.
My mother’s 1930s mentality kicked in.
She picked a twig to whip me.
A crime now. Legal when whites did it.
4. Circa 1980
My block occupies all white folks.
My friends, Mark & Amy live around the corner
playing Star Wars with baby dolls.
When I used their bathroom,
I wasn’t allowed to close the door.
They watched to see if I pee’d black.
When they found it to be yellow,
Mark wiped the toilet seat with white tissue
Erasing my existence.
5. Circa 1974
I live in between two different worlds.
One Black.
The other white.
My mother’s light-skinned melanin tells me
Yankee blood swims beneath the bedrock of our family river
where some people pee.
Photo by Nsey Benajah on Unsplash
Zorina Exie Frey is a digital designer, educator, publishing content writer, and spoken word poet. Her writings are featured in Shondaland, Shoutout Miami, Chicken Soup for the Soul: I’m Speaking Now, and swamp pink. Zorina is the Poetry Editor for South 85 Journal and Editor-in-Chief of 45 Magazine Poetry Journal. She is a Palm Beach Poetry Festival Langston Hughes Fellow and Martha’s Vineyard Institute of Creative Writing Voices of Color Fellow. Her screenplay, Harley Quinn Origin received an honorable mention at the Birmingham Film Festival in the United Kingdom and she was a semi-finalist for the reality TV pilot Americas Next Great Author. She has presented her work at the National Association for Poetry Therapy Conference, The Maryland Writers’ Association 2022 Brain to Bookshelf Conference, and South Florida Writers Association. More at: https://zorina-frey.com.
A 2024 Pushcart Prize winner, Frey's poem can be found in Issue 25 of Glassworks. and in The Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses 2024
