some things are better left unexplained.

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Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Homeless Man to Mckendy

*note: this is a prompt to write a poem from the perspective of a villain character in a way that makes the reader sympathetic to them when they wouldn't have been otherwise.  I chose to write from the perspective of the racist homeless man in Mckendy's poem.  (If you've heard it, you'll know that this starts out with a bit of parody.)

To the young black man with nice shoes 
who would not give me his cell phone 
even before I called him the N word:

Sorry...

Now can I have the phone? 

I don't want the night. 
It grays my eyes and burbles black from my throat 
imbuing the same a harsh accent it did 
when it sputtered, dark and viscous, from my father's
and his fathers'.
It is the closest thing I have to a home,
bitter and deceptive.
You assume leaving it would be easy.

Did you think you were the first to lie to me? 
I have long since forgotten the language of subtle politics.
Look at me.  
Do you think I have grown accustomed
to being addressed with nuance and tact?
Was that your first instinct?
On a good day, I hear nothing but blunt truth and deceit.
Is there any doubt such things 
would roll just as freely off my poisoned tongue?

You think I don't know you?
Let me call you the thing you hate
and see how closely it aligns our vision.
Do you dare to do the same?
Look me in the eye and call me "homeless."
Call me "bum."  Call me "vagrant."  Call me "vagabond."
Tell me how your spare change will just be poured down my throat.
Give me those nice shoes and let me ruin them.
Give me that phone and let me crush it under heel.
There are things more hideous than toenails
that can become infected and ingrown.

Do not lecture me about progress
when it is I who am asking you for the handout.
Would you tell a planted seed
it had picked the wrong soil?
We grow where we are made to.
There is a reason my roots are bitter,
why untruth comes so quickly to your tongue.
You think these shoes were always in tatters?
We are not so different.

I am you without the lying.
Neither of us could stand to be invisible.
I am you without a voice that will be heard.
Without the finger pointing and the lectures.
Without a phone glowing in my pocket.
I see how you cradle it like a baby,
like the girl on your arm.
Of course it's the one thing I ask for, 
knowing it is the last thing you would ever give.
But, I got your attention.
Made you look toward me and notice me,
recognize that I exist.
Pay attention.  I can spit blood on a whim.

You remember me most for calling you
a name.
Come closer.  I've got a thousand more.
I will use them all 
if you will only look at me again.
Retaliate and affirm that what I say matters.
Let me hurt you. 
Leave a piece of me lodged in your throat, 
let my words ring in your ear.
Remember this story.
Tell it over and over to your friends
at your parties
until I am familiar,
until I am one of them,
like my story belongs there.
Until I have a name, like "remember that time?"
Until I am the star of somebody's poem.
Until I have someone 
to call on your phone
who would ever be glad to hear from me.

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