What are the ABCs
Published in KEEPERS 2026 Youth Poetry Anthology
By Lecole Thibodeax
When I was younger, every night
I’d recite
MY ABCs
Because no one ever took the time to teach me
They went a little something like this:
A black girl’s skin is beautiful
But for every one black girl,
There’s two little boys saying
“You cute, for a black girl”
Capitalism: a system built brick by brick
To untangle my curls
A system
Deeming my skin color unworthy of first place
A system
Meant to fuck me over
E for excellence
Obviously
Fuck every barrier that has tried to break me down
My skin holding as a barricade from your bullshit,
I’ve known since 10 years old
My skin color was just another word for
GUN!
HANDS in the air before I shoot you
I can’t breathe. Years worth of suffocating
From the shackles
You’ve placed on me
Just let us be free
Killing my people
And for what?
What satisfaction do you gain
From seeing a little boy
Laying in a pool of blood
Black, white, or blue
It is still cruel
Limitless and loud
My grandmother always told me:
The sky’s the limit
A boarder that now separates her from me
I hope her skin paints the sky black just for me
Not one person took the time to teach me my abc’s
I
Opened a book
Put my nose in it so deep,
You’d think I was snorting knowledge
Questions I used to ask my father
…
To save you some time,
There are none
Regardless of an absence that shapes every little black girl’s life
Still we rise because from a young age
Our mothers taught us they were our fathers
My mother
Taught me to twirl my pain within my curls
That was
Until I learned what 450 degrees and a straightener could do
CHRRRR (radio)
Violent, aggressive, and black
Welcome to my world
X marks the spot where history
Forgot to write every one of my ancestor’s names
Yesterday, I went outside and discovered
Every night
My grandmother paints the sky black for me
Z if for zero
The number of times
History succeeded in erasing us
Also the number of times anybody asked
When I was younger if I knew my ABCs
