Saccharine Under the Circumstances

I hate the whiteness that surrounds me.
That feeds me
educates me
pays me
celebrates me
disciplines me
shapes me
abets me
trusts me
gratifies me
winks at me
suffocates me

I hate the whiteness that moves through me
I hate that there is no way to separate
the color of my skin
from ostensible beauty of limits and thefts
from a normativity beaten from difference
from an entitlement of birthright without blood
from a divinity that crowned my father clean
from an objectivity that erases inconvenience
from a destiny that steals futures
from a nation that murders to make me

I hate to be marked
I hate to be favored
I hate to carry a history of rape and murder and engineered famine—
crushing the bones of little children like apple snail eggs—
and unload it with a thud
while knowing it’s heavier than I can perceive,
and you must work around it or be broken
by the weight of our knowing

I hate that the only word I have to describe this feeling
is as saccharine as “hate.”

Postwar Reaction

Had the Nazis won
There’d have been a
Nationalist Atlantic Treaty Organization,
staffed by high-ranking Wehrmacht officials—
men with names like Speidel, Heusinger,
Gehlen, and Globke.

Perhaps a man named Werner
would build rockets for the Reich
under the stars and stripes.

There’d be an industry for tracing ancestry.
People might say things like:
“I’m 47% German and 33% French.” And respond:
"Aren’t you glad to know that you’re pure?”

We’d compete for purest blood,
and purest German grammar,
and German ideals—
such as Efficiency,
Individualism,
the Value of Hard Work,
and Law and Order.

The police would be held up
as heroes
and paid as such,
with bonuses for cracked skulls
and hidden lists kept confidential.

Had the Confederates won
There’d have been a white supremacist United States,
with a white language,
and white neighborhoods,
and white committees deciding
who speaks
and who dies.

They’d issue identification cards:
Eyes: blue
Hair: blonde
Blood: Hexadecaroon
Neighborhood: Birchwood Reserve

The police would stop you
if you looked like you didn’t belong.

Villains would write our textbooks,
name our schools,
tell our stories—
and we would call them heroes.