can trauma be owned
can it be speculated on / paid for in plastic rainbows & rubber kisses?
you, white feminist, are a bracelet locking me within these washed, haunted halls (so clean):
the clock, this wristband, these lunch trays – they tell me to give one story
here the exact four lines you’ve been repeating for decades
I’ll say them as routine:
- patriarchy is “you’re a virgin, mother, whore”
- resisting patriarchy involves sisterhood with all women
- I gladly join you in solidarity
- I gladly join you in doing solidarity work
…for free.
I’ll volunteer all the hours for free
to clean up the halls
to organize support groups
I can run this all by myself
with you, without you
(no difference)
lead workshops / scream through the bottom of my lungs
for freedom
from patriarchy.
last sunday, you are haunting me with your bodiless ghost stories
and I fell in love with you. how couldn’t I have loved spectral flickers against the ironing board
leaning against the closet
where my history books pile up a tall bed
(only place left in this house to sleep I guess)
“I’ve read all of these,” you whisper into my ears after kissing me goodnight, closing the door behind you
I didn’t need to read all of these
but I love your
pristine porcelain lavender femmepower
septum ring razor-sharp haircut / symbolic radical queer feminist tattoo
you make it hard to love men of colour
(killallmen)
how can I, with the wound here? this wound blossoming a swollen dandelion empire
white feminist, you cannot help me heal from that wound
you tell me what my shame is, make up a ghost story to amuse yourself
(this nameless shame you’ve given me)
oh white feminist, I want to love you as an equal, not as an enemy
but you’ve sold me love in a paper bag, a glitter and perfume I’m allergic to
don’t say lateral violence: say “ladders are violence.”
ask, “who did we employ to build the ladder?”
(who’s we?)
if I could buy your silence in the metal coins you mined from the place I left behind
I’d tell you to delete these blood-written harddrives
don’t read me
not in languages of my ancestors I have lost because of you
not between pages of ebooks built by brown boy engineers you lump in with the rest of ‘em until you don’t
not in the hate that can only travel elsewhere / lodged in another’s throat
a bilge-secret, sinking
white feminist, dare I kick down these white walls, and bruise my heal?
“who will do night shifts, then?”
when I need you to kick down those walls, who will you kick in the process?
white feminist, I am not an error, a terror, a silicon valley start-up fantasy
the blood on the toilet is art
(you owe me 10 dollars)
but I’ll use mineral water to clean it, just for you.
