They say racism never sleeps but nah. It sleeps. It lays down, and it closes its eyes, and it sleeps six hours more than you and wakes smiling and laughing and ready to go another round, and here you are struggling to keep your eyes open.
bang.
Racism clocks off, and it goes home to its wife and two point three with dark eyes and an easy tan and hair that breaks off when it gets to the part between their shoulders that people shouldn’t touch, but do.
touch.
Racism shakes you awake – weren’t you already? it lays its hands on you in the middle of a dream, and it says you don’t belong, and it says it again but you think you were still dreaming – weren’t you?
don’t.
Racism keeps moving, and you fall and you fall again. It occurs to you maybe that‘s not your fault and racism frowns and says maybe not, in that way that you can’t tell whether to feel heard or just patronised, but neither way do you feel safe.
here.
Racism mistakes empathy for compassion, and doubles down on that mistake until it becomes yours. It says you don’t trust me, and somehow that is your fault. It says you don’t know me, and somehow that is your fault. It says you don’t get me, and. Somehow.
that is your fault.
Racism tells you one thing, and it tells you another, and the things it says are true like how it’s true the moon disappears every month. It will never say: you are not the shadow no matter how well you wear it, or you are not the fables no matter whose mouth they come out of. It will never say that your moon does not disappear.
listen.
Racism is love, the same way that anger is love, the same way that possession and controlling and need are love. It is a love worth less than your fears, worth less than your falls, worth less than any part of you broken down into false context and as powerful as it is
racism sleeps.