I haven't written anything publicly for the last few months. I started back at school last semester and haven't had the time or head space that I thought I might. But out of this has come many good things and perhaps for the first time, I am enjoying school.
This poem is from the first day of my first english class last semester. The professor stood at the front of class and gave us all a Langston Hughes poem. She told us to write our own page in response. This is my response to “Theme for English B” by Langston Hughes.
Inexplicable Irrational Honesty
You said
“Read this poem and write a page of your own”
Is it really that simple?
Is this a trap?
I guess I’ll tell you I was born in Denver, schooled here after a fashion
I guess I don't need to tell you I’m a white man
I've never been the only white man in my class
I've always blended right in
Maybe I shouldn’t tell you that I’ve dropped out of every school I’ve been in since 2008
Maybe I shouldn't pull back that curtain
Yet I sit here in front of you with only a middle school graduation to my name
Would you have guessed?
Could you tell?
Did something give me away?
The truth is blending in has been its own trap
Truth is I've never been the “average white guy” I try so hard to affect
Truth is I’m white trash with a polished suburban facade
Truth is I feel like “my people” will turn on me the second they see me for what I am
I can’t reveal myself I might lose what privilege it affords me
You’re a black woman and please know this is not writing for your sympathy or as an attack
I can't help but reveal myself in this writing
Will this be enough?
Will you read and reject this?
Will my words fail me in this attempt?
As the author mused
Will my page be white that I write
I don't see how it couldn't be
But will it also not be somehow?
If I’m honest will I not be white enough somehow?
Will it somehow let slip that i'm not what i'm supposed to be?
That I’ve been pretending this hole time
What would that even mean
What would I do next
Inexplicable irrational fear
Is this why my “people” haven’t stopped
Haven’t looked
Haven’t learned
Do we all feel this?
Does that even matter?
I have no answers only questions
I can feel my strength running into this page
My anger and my fear
But I can also feel this page sapping my will to write it
Even I can only face this truth for two pages
Even now I feel the fire leaving
Being drowned in shame and sadness
Why am I so afraid to reveal myself on this page?
If I reveal myself will I lose the security of being just another white guy?
No that is afforded me by the skin I inhabit
And the violence of my “people” before me
If I’m not honest on this page will I ever be more?
What more is there I can be?
Where will I stand after honesty?
Will it even matter?
It's too late now I've already done it
This trap is my life lived and the lives of others
The world that offers to make me free at your expense
That protects me if I blend in
That would divide me from you
Truth is the trap that I feel so bound by is just a shadow
Of the same system that has bound you who I am “so better than”