How do you know who I am
Or what I stand for
I look ordinary
No dreadlocks
No paintings on my body
No rings piercing my ear
My eyes aren’t weary yet
My skin is white
I am educated
I have a piece of paper
I wear cotton clothes
Black pants
A clean shirt
I look like I am comfortable
That suffering is foreign to me
So what is it that I can say
When my identity is so plain?
But who must declare themselves openly?
Is it the man who has decided he has become all there is to be?
Is it the man who is unsure of the facts of life that he reads?
Is it the man who gives up his ambition to be what does not pay?
Is it the man who tells everyone the streets are where there are real men?
It is him who suffers most who becomes the angry man
It is him who becomes angry that is liberated
It is him who is liberated who can tell the truth
And so what do I tell you?
I am not him
I have no right to be angry
I have no right to be liberated
I have no right to tell the truth
Is that my identity?
No right to speak harshly of oppression
No right to speak harshly of poverty
No right to speak harshly of hunger
And it is true
I am not oppressed
I am not poor
I am not hungry
So I cannot pretend to be any of these things
I cannot pretend to have that connection
Who do I have the nerve to be?
So I spin a tale that I imagine of a life that I know exists
I think about what it would be like to watch an angry man
I think about what it would be like to watch a poor woman
I think about what it would be like to watch a migration
I think about what it would be like if I lost everything
I think about what it would be like to give everything away
Then I know
And I am ashamed
I know I would not survive
And so it is not because I am not poor
It is because I wouldn’t know how to live
Like they are able to live
Without hope
But with life
Without respect
But with pride
Without relevance
But with identity
Because they know who they are
The chosen ones
Who have the right
To smirk at those of us who visit the poor on a field trip
And then go home and forget
Forget them
While they remember us
The soulless ones
Without the knowing of anything
Without the knowing of how to live
Without the knowing of survival
Without the knowing of will
Without the knowing of who we are