The Words I Don’t Say
Image: @dtopkin1
They say I have a way with words. And they have a way with me, words make a way for me to feel what some* (re: non-Black) people won’t have the humanity to see and understand. And yes I know, who, or what, am I to question someone else’s humanity ? But see I know what it’s like to not be, to feel the pain of one human’s apathy as I morph for their understanding. It just won’t and it don’t work. So I lurk on socials hoping to find minds that are alike, in “kind” with mine. I follow quietly. Silently learning and yearning for connection. It’s ok though, I am earning an education in a profession that won’t ever name me. I know this because it’s those of Black scholars who make up a list I claim. Their works I had neither the energy or bandwidth to absorb. I am ashamed. Can you see the heat rising on my brown skin, if it where any lighter, or whiter, you might see it burn beat red. Embarrassment, a feeling that finds the time to blame me for my shortcomings.
Gif: Hallmark Channel, courtesy via Giphy
“I am ashamed. Can you see the heat rising on my brown skin, if it where any lighter, or whiter, you might see it burn beat red. Embarrassment, a feeling that finds the time to blame me for my shortcomings.
”
Maybe this is neglect I’m feeling right now. The kind that graduate students feel across the board. Is it time to cut the cord, of feeling responsible for other’s feelings? Oh my lord! Are you out there in the world? Are on you own learning how to hone techniques of writing, researching and, sometimes, teaching. All while reaching, and refraining from biting off of one another. Well that happens too, its the classmates and the professors that do. Cozying up, denying ideas that strive to heard and seen. No citations, no critical reflection of what that feedback could really mean, to a scholar of marginalized background. Once lost and now we are found out of our own volition.
Image:@jordanmadrid
It cures, serving up USDA nutrition to heal me. Sometimes I sit in complicity with guilt that belongs to non-Black folx. Ahh it’s never for me, their anti- Blackness, their racism is no match, you see. I try to build coalition, but what is truly to come into fruition when people don’t even hear it, let alone see it. Act fast. Apologize. Don’t be crass in righting your wrongs. No I’m strong, a Black woman dying under the weight of misogynoir that’s burdening me. Past you’re insults that are hurling at me, I am whirling into a pool of reverent love collecting lives lost, to which I ask all of my words what was the cost?
