September Twenty First, 2011

Dear Troy,

I know these words
will never reach you,
that my
empathy cannot cross
space, time,
prison walls.

In less than a day they will
extinguish
the flame that was your life
with the word
"justice"
dripping from the syringe.

I thought we had agreed
to stop lynching people.

they say we live in a
"post-racial" society,
but you and I both know that it's all
bullshit.

today my white guilt is
suffocating.
i call and call and call
the Chatham County DA
and sign countless online petitions
and wail and sing and cry
for your clemency
hoping my little white girl voice can talk a little
sense
to their blood-thirsty ears
but all that will come from my
"activism"
are unanswered phone messages and
email spam and
noise.

they want blood, Troy,
but you know that.
their rage places you
square
in the line of fire.

"collateral damage"
they call it.

I wonder when we,
the colonizers,
the oppressors,
the privileged
will have to answer for
our crimes.

when will the nightmare end?

I'm sorry, Troy,
deeply sorry, Troy,

for everything.

collateral damage

i walk cautiously, tentatively,
pepper spray in hand
ready
to combat violence with violence.
i have been conditioned as such-- i
am a product of conflict, though
i've never experienced
napalm,
armed militias,
revolution.

i wonder
if my imagined attackers
could question themselves:
if the burn of chemical weaponry would cause them
to lose their sense of
entitlement
or if they would just hit the next bitch they saw
harder,
rape more brutally

or if they would pick up a gun
and travel farther
to foreign lands
to live, kill, and maybe die
"for me."

all i can do is
keep my doors locked;
check the peephole at every knock,
suspect everyone and
weather the long night
curled up like cats
with the people i trust today.