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Wednesday, July 23, 2008

i cannot change where i was born

i cannot change where I was born, which side of the wall…
there is a wall… and I don’t live near it…maybe I don’t let myself near it.
why?
why…is it bigger than my courage?
is it to discomforting for my blanket life.
I mean, my blanket life was inherited.
but it feels dirty sometimes…
like someone else’s blood and toil purchased it for me…

for me? or were parts of it stolen, was a woman coerced, a man beaten, a child neglected for my blanket life…
i am sorry.
sorry but not sure how to grieve.
Unsure of what repentance looks like… so that the women, the man, the child will see and feel and know…i am sorry.

i am sorry…but I still don’t know all i must be sorry for…because I haven’t heard your entire story yet…
i haven’t sat long enough to listen to your eyes

your eyes…will you show me your eyes – even though I am clumsy? Will you show me again, though i am slow?
so slow…
slowly… loudly… slowly… deeply… i need you more than i know…I am white. i have money. i have power…
power… but I am rotting and despairing in the places i have missed the dream…missed the dream

the dream is breathing in me, haunting me, holding and forming me through your eyes.
Your eyes beckon me to forsake my blanket-life, to learn what sorry means to you.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Love this.

Anonymous said...

This says everything i've wanted to say about my white, make, guilt.