The latest in a biweekly poetry series curated by Hanif Abdurraqib
They say these streets is safe from hate,
That their tree-lined trails are tread only by those
Willing to walk beside another
Without judgment based on color;
Where justice is just something
That everybody knows.
They say that inclusivity is a pillar of our community
A proud construction proclaiming “All are Welcome!” and other
Words of peace, each one pithy and clean cut:
A wooden panel in a picket fence
Stretching on for miles
In a straight white line.
But I'm beginning to doubt these platitudes,
I've cut them open with context and seen
Hot air rushing out,
Leaving behind the less-than-presentable sentiments
Kept between the lines
When white people proclaim unity.
But believe me
When I say I wish that every bumper sticker slogan
Was gospel truth, that the glue on the back
Could stick together age-old wounds,
That coexist meant coexist, not ignorance of distinction
Rather recognition that a yard sign is only
Part of the solution, and that liberal communities
Still have a history of exclusion
So truly, as I walk these sheltered streets
All I am is a trespasser.
The sun-faced son of immigrant
And immigrants daughter;
I remember looking in the mirror,
Trying with childish might to see myself through blue eyes
Because I imagined that they made everything look
Cool as cresting waves ripe with white foam.
The irony passed over my head
Like offhand glances people gave me
When my actions insulted my skin by carrying
A child's carelessness, and over the next nine years
Even I would regret letting myself grow up slowly.
Wishing I had learned earlier that my family
Came from way farther than a mile away
So I could've understood why so few found it worth their time
To walk the distance in my shoes because they already knew
All they needed, not just about me but the space
I was naive enough to step in without getting
The proper subtext from that ever-present welcoming;
Because their great grandparents had built the streets
That mine had almost never seen, and called them safe
To draw lines between their neighborhoods
And the city, and as I stepped across them
I learned that these safe streets
Are safe for precisely no one
Outside the preset decorum, behavior, beliefs, whatever goes against
The segregationist heritage
That says trespassing is heresy, generational hatred
Aimed at anyone who dares to defy
The paradise they created
So I do so in plain sight
Hoping to change the narrative.