Conflicted Sonnet

The sentiment expressed herein is one I am ashamed of, and so I’m going to use some words to introduce it. The depth of the pain and systemic betrayal of racial minorities and especially the black community here in Seattle and the US has gotten a lot more viscerally clear to me in the last couple of years. And I’m here looking at it and understanding a tiny bit of how deep the wrongs are and realizing that I have to do something about it if I am to continue to feel ok about myself as a human being. I think this dawning awareness is making me a better person, and it has deepened my compassion and understanding of the way the world works. And yet a not-insignificant part of me resents the hell out of this growing awareness. I don’t want to know because my life was very comfortable before, thank you very much, and I had other things to care about that are still important to me and I don’t wish to neglect them. But right now, for me, if I put anything into the world that DOESN’T address this stuff (and most of my output is still in that category of not addressing) I feel frustrated with myself, like I’m walking past a starving child and trying to enjoy my ice cream. I don’t believe that it is sustainable to focus all my time and attention on “the cause,” but there’s a little voice in my head that says “if you were a person of color, there would never be a moment you could put this burden down” and the unfairness of it all overwhelms me and child me is like SHUT UP I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOU and it’s all very confusing.

I tried and failed to write about it all a bunch of times so I had to make it a sonnet because there’s something about that form that pulls words out of me, even though it probably isn’t the best form to express the sentiment it contains.

I want to be a warrior! Things are bad

and I will swing my social-justice sword!

Except--I don’t feel violent. I feel sad.

And sorry, scared, uncertain, even bored

of hashing out what seems so obvious.

I am responsible. I feel this now.

But I don’t wish to be. If only just

for moments, I would love to set it down,

and write about the traffic going by,

and how the sunset made me feel, and how

my son explodes my heart with just a sigh.

I think all those things matter—it’s just, now,

I feel compelled by greater urgency.
So who I am is a dichotomy.