State of Double Consciousness

A poem in the works, one that has layers of subtle meanings and what you think you’re reading is not really what you’re reading.

I’m the smile offered up as a sacrificial lamb

I’m the scrubs worn on the golf course

I’m the sideways glance that tries to relay

the message I’m one of the good ones

I’m the vile and empty translation of myself

totally emptied so that you will accept me.

I exist in the state of Double Consciousness.

Of knowing that I deserve better but that,

for now, with you I must settle. Not like when

the pilgrims settled where the Indians already lived

more like that scenario but reversed. In this case

I am the one who is native and indigenous

and being killed slowly. No matter how good I am

I will never be enough. This marriage of the minds

an institutional land mine, a massacre of my soul.

Like estranged lovers we’re struggling to build

a future on the lies that became the foundation

on which we rest. We are ignorantly bliss. Or

maybe that’s just you because there are days when I

feel like I am your tired, your hungry, your poor

I need more but you are righteously blind

to my needs.

I exist in a state of Double Consciousness.

It’s been clear, as in I’ve always known, that you

don’t love me, the shallow superficiality you call love

transcends all your futile efforts to lull me into

silent acceptance of the deformed misanthropy you

call love. Was it you who misspoke or did I

mishear you?

Peace & Love,

Rosalind