535. White Privilege

“Do you plead guilty for being skin-white?”,

The judge asked, pointing his gavel at me.

“We must rid the world of the hateful sight,

Of privilege and self-superiority”.

I pled, “I’m not guilty, your honor!”,

To the resounding of gasps, oohs, and ahhs.

“I’m not guilty any less…any more,

Nor have I broken any just moral laws.

I reject your claim that I’m a color.

I am human. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Of the same shade as our first ancestors.

Color only matters when used to oppress.

We are of the same fam’ly and species,

Though our troubled history is quite clear.

Evil has been done to everybody,

For we’re all susceptible to manipulation and fear.

Color and anything that’s “different”,

Is used to attain power and control.

Forging divides where they once were absent.

Oppressing far too many a human soul.

So I can not be guilty, your honor,

For I refuse to accept division.

My privilege is merely in living, sir.

I do not acknowledge this court’s position!”

“Sentence her!”…”Guilty!”, the court erupted;

As, “Order! Order!”, the judge shouted out.

“I see this trial has long been corrupted.”

“Not guilty”, the judge firmly declared. “Out! Out!”

And as I strode outside into the sun,

Someone in the crowd yelled, “Racist!”, and *BANG*

Another human oppressed by oppression.

And in the end: What is won? What is won?

As the lynched and I sang, yes, sang to the grave,

The power-mad laud that finally…

“Justice has been done!”

K. Aldaya, 4/28/21

Picture 1: By Volkan Olmez on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/wESKMSgZJDo

Picture 2: By Kamil Feczko on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/fd3BpI6NcMU

465. The Proof’s Missing It’s Pudding

What if in my honesty,

I am not believed?

If someone were to question my reality?

Can truth ever be received,

Without proof and the third-degree?

What if I misword my speech,

And what’s heard’s not meant?

Should I remain silent or cry, plead, and beseech…

The Gods, who will stay absent,

As my honor flies out of reach?

What if in my honesty,

I am not believed?

Am I the fool for truly speaking openly,

Of the plight of the bereaved?

With no corpse to see, and nod: acknowledgingly;

For in acceptance of the truth…

Men want proof…..They all want proof.

K. Aldaya, 1/18/19

441. PTSD

The world is so busying telling me,

How I should feel and who I should be,

That it’s never, even once, stopped to think,

Whether I’m not exactly who I’m meant to be.

Maybe I will never be like you.

Maybe I’m not supposed to.

Maybe asking me to be something else,

Is the reason I can’t get through.

Maybe I would be okay,

If the world accepted what’s different.

Though, no matter how accepting it claims to be,

Some of us leave too much of an imprint.

We make a mess. Stand out too much.

Cops trail us and build up a case.

“It’s odd you were at the crime scene,

Even odder that your prints were all over the place!

Guilty by association, my child.

You’re guilty for showing-up: time and again.

You’re a victim, but perhaps an accomplice as well.

Did you not know it would drive you insane?

Now you are just as responsible.

Only criminals return to the crime!

You could have been normal…like us,

Instead, you’ve wasted this courts precious time.”

Yet, if we may speak to this court, sir.

We feel guilty and shameful each day,…

That we haven’t moved on…couldn’t move on…

And fell down, and apart, and astray.

We didn’t know how. We still don’t know now,

How to escape from that place,

Though if we could one day do so,

As you’ve stated, we’ve already left our trace;

A trace of guilt. A trace of our crimes,…

Of guilt by association.

No matter what we may say to these crimes,

The world will ne’er forgive the implication.

The implication that we are criminals.

That not being like you. Not living like you,

Is a bloody-bed of our own making;

For there’s only acceptance for crimes you live through,

But ones which stay, fester, and remain,

Which turn us wretched, and drive us insane,

Are the ones which society won’t accept.

And refuse to consider,…o’erlooking the brain.

Yes, the world is so busy telling me,

How I should feel and who I should be,

Yet has it ever wondered why we’re not free,

To be who life has made us to be?

No, I am not like you or them,

And no, I will never be in the end;

Though just because I am different,

Must I be rejected ’til the end?

Placed up on trial again, and again to defend…

Why I am the way I am?

I’m a lifetime of sounds and sights you can’t see.

Yet, men like to spurn what they don’t understand,

And charge for the crime of PTSD.

K. Aldaya, 5/23/18

Picture: By: Bill Oxford on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/OXGhu60NwxU

419. What Do You Call It?

photo-1604160804958-b59ad848c8aa

What do you call it when someone’s judged by their skin?

When they’re told, “You’re a certain way and don’t fit in”.

What do you call it when they’re picked on for their shade?

When they’re told they are wrong, just for how they were made?

What do you call it when they’re blamed for who they are?

“Your skin is the reason why you deserve a scar”.

What do you call it when they’re told: “Change your color!”.

Told: “It isn’t right” or “You should have another”?

I’ll tell you what it is called…It’s called racism, right?

Though I wonder what you’d say if I told you they were “white”.

K. Aldaya, 11/29/17

Picture: By: Jon Tyson on Unsplash; https://unsplash.com/photos/BQoNx5G6mEI