Microaggression

Microaggression

That thing that is a thing

That really isn’t a thing

It’s real in a scholarly article or

In a library database

But the minute the word leaves my lips

To describe how I live

It’s fake

 

Unreasonable doubt

 

Microaggression

Too vulgar for your after-school special

But not enough for a therapy session

Because there’s no cure for oppression

There’s no medicine for this disease

Even though I have symptoms everyday

Symptoms that you may not ever even see

That no vaccination or inoculation could

Ever prevent

This is a diagnosis; this is a dose of reality

My pain, my wound, my infliction, my condition – it’s there

Trust me

 

Blind faith

 

Microaggression

Is when you don’t like someone for no reason —

Wait, there is a reason, but it remains to be unsaid

Even though it’s in your heart and

All up in your head

But you can hear it if

You’re really quiet and you really listen

To your bias and to your intuition

Microaggression by definition is

Subtle discrimination

Every day, threaded

The fabric of this nation

 

Sight seen and unseen

 

Microagression

Is If I looked like you, I would have gotten the job that you do and

I really like your people, and

I just love their hair too

Can I touch it? I mean, is it okay with you? or

You’re my favorite friend of color, my brother

Who knows your truth better than me?

 

Microaggression

I find you in traveling lectures and

In fancy books by fancy smancy professors

But I see you more in the hallways

And in the mall

And at work and

At the bar and

On Facebook and

On the news

And in my neighborhood

And in my blues

 

Too close to home

 

Microaggression

But you go by another name:

The girl that sits next to me in class who

Covers her tests with her hands thinking

Her answers are the only reason I

Pass

Or the mother that grabs her child’s hand real tight

When I walk by at night

And in the daytime and

The co-worker who pretends to be my friend but

Soon as I turn my back, she’s criticizing me and the position

I don’t deserve to be in

Who’s who?

 

You’re with me everyday

Some of you I don’t even know

Yet and still, I know you better than I

Ever knew myself