Blunt Trauma

It’s that tone you take with me.

As if I am a telemarketer or

Your bloated cousin. 

I can stop talking if you want. 

Let the quietness drown out the pretention

And in the transparent lull

I can fully perceive

How empty your heart is..  

Color BLIND

I am white. 

If that made you cringe,

Then you won’t hear my voice

That is as inflamed, violent, as subdued and

Melancholy as yours. 

Just like you,

I traveled over flammable mounds of garbage,

In impenetrable alleyways.  I have heard the howls of

hopelessness and felt the impregnable void of loneliness. 

I too moved in a world constructed only for somebody else

and learned to navigate the darkness. 

Except,

I’m not really white.

Are you still listening? 

I am African. I am Latina.  I am Eskimo, Polynesian, Chinese, Mulatto,

I AM.

All of you.  

I’m a mistake cloaked in compassion,

I linger in your hallways, inhale your musky scent;

Cigarettes and oil;

I swallow your leftovers and amble in your stilted shadows;

Your anointed nymph, forever waiting

For your recovery.

But she waits too, with needles and tar.

A spineless debutante, caressing you with necrosis  

Replete with corpulent tranquilizers,

Unconditional numbness and love.

She’s a lumbering beast

With a fistful of pills and rancor.

And I understand

Why you choose her.