Open Doors and Uninvited Guests.
Open Doors and Uninvited Guests
“Why are you bringing race into this?”
You ask.
Like we stepped out the door for a second.
Grabbed race by the back of its collar.
Hauled it inside against its will.
Forced it to be our champion.
Race was in here.
Race was living here.
Race was paying rent and doing dishes.
Long before you showed up with a friend of yours
and dropped like a medicine ball
on the beanbag chair in the media room
fingertips coated in Cool Ranch Dorito
holding court on the news of the day.
Race was watching from the corner of the room
hoping you were
pass-out drunk
not stumble drunk
not fistfight drunk
not my uncle once told me this insensitive joke
drunk.
Race was present and breathing
and you thought it appropriate
to ignore it
to claim you couldn’t see it
to say it had no place
in the space it inhabits
until someone suggested
that its expertise
and experience
and residency
gave it the right
to be taken into account.
Race wasn’t tossed into the conversation.
Race was hosting the conversation.
Yet you acted like the doors
and the walls and the windows
and the fixtures and furnishings
were yours
instead.
Creative Control 