I don’t accept
I’m not ready
You’re not ready

To say
“I’m sorry”

Because to forgive for me
Is to forget for you

And I’m not ready
For you to forget

I need you to remember
To think
To agonize

As I have remembered
And thought
And agonized

Not as punishment
Sometimes pain is necessary for growth

So I need you to struggle
To grow
To seek to understand

Otherwise your “sorry”
Is a blank canvas
Meant for me to write
The meaning

I refuse to do your labor
To bear this pain alone

I don’t accept
Your “sorry”

She whispers
“Maybe you should cross the street.”
“He could be a threat.”
“Are you surrrrre you’re safe?”

Such goes the daily commentary from my inner racist
She is persistent
And ever present

Always ready to inform me
About differences that are scary
Stereotypes that could be true
People that could be a threat

The least inattention allows her
To spring to the fore
And take over

Battling her is tiring
And feels thankless
And lonely

But if she wins

She divides me
From those who would support my struggle
As I support theirs

She divides me
From family
From friends
From connections that sustain me

She divides me
From myself

So the battle is necessary
But I wish I could believe
That someday she would retreat for good
And the battle would be done

Anger is an overwhelming feeling
I swallow it so I won’t be
Consumed by it

But it bubbles
And simmers
In my gut, in my heart and in my head

Sometimes it isn’t tethered to anything
It’s just there, swallowing me

Sometimes it is tethered to something
To something that happened to me

               Long, long ago

How can anger stay so fresh
When it’s source has gone stale
How are events in the past
And also inside me, fueled by this fresh anger

Sometimes my anger is unfocused
It stares at all the world in rage

Sometimes my anger is very focused
On one point in the world

                   In the past

Will the past ever just be the past?
Will this anger always bubble and simmer inside of me?

Most of the time I think it won’t
That it too will eventually become stale

But there are moments
When I lose hope that that will happen
And I think I will always look at the world
With anger simmering in my heart

“He looks homeless”
“Can she speak English?”
“It’s hard to take her seriously”

These thoughts have always been with me
Steeped into my thoughts
Into my beliefs
Into my actions

They hide around the corners of my mind
Always part of the background
Or they are front and center
Impossible to unsee

Sometimes I can label them in the moment
Classist
Racist
Sexist

Sometimes I can only see their influence with the distance of time
Or through another’s eyes

Where do they come from
How do they shape me
How do they shape everyone around me

How much of my essence is mine?
How many of my thoughts originate outside of me?

I think I’ll never fully know

All I can do
All we can do

Is label
Set aside
And look again

Why am I always sorry?
I’m not responsible
I’m not to blame
I don’t need to appease you

Why am I always sorry?
When really
I mean
             I hear you
             My heart reaches out to you
             I accept the sharing of your pain

Women are sorry
Sorry to disturb you
Sorry to ask for things
Sorry to exist

Why is the language of empathy
             Also the language of abuse

I don’t want to shoulder your pain
I have enough of my own

Pain can be shared to heal
Or it can be shared to harm

I choose healing
Please choose healing

So I am not sorry
I see your pain
I hear your story

And offer my own

Emotions are hard
Hard to feel
Hard to share

It’s so much easier to offer a mirror
And let others
              See what they want to see
              Hear what they want to hear

Offering authenticity is complicated
                    Snarled
Full of light
              and dark
                       and confusion

Sometimes I don’t want to look
I don’t want to see
I don’t want to know

                   I don’t want to feel

But a shallow existence only works for so long
To grow, we must grow roots
To connect, we must reach out

Will you be worthy of my truth?
Will you face it with me?
Will you meet my vulnerability with your own?

I can only wish
And hope
And believe

That you will

Secrets can make you
Secrets can break you

Secrets shape us
Secrets divide us
Secrets drop a wall between us

Dividing families with no one the wiser
How can they not see this?
It’s right there

Between us

What if I tell?
What if they know?
What if they judge?

The scariest outcome would be
If nothing changes

And the wall of secrets wasn’t
The real divide

Between us