White women won’t weep

Of accessories lost and lovers of color

Of the shades of nostalgia

Most luminous

A ship set sail

The lighthouse turns

But who the light, who the house, and who the vessel escaping?

Perhaps, questions are queer

And her mind, unplagued

Or rather, rendered writhing

Of Disney paradigms

Care, Karen, care

For the laughs gone missing and the heart disappearing

That you unknowingly chased

Chaste and ignorant

And powerful and proximal

And weak

Get your man

And your brother

And your cisters, too

Get them off my back

And chase them as you must

Just stay the hell away from me

What once felt like protection

Is now a privileged jab

Vexatious, envious, withholding

My friendship not your purse

My penis not your pepper spray

Do you cry, once friend?

Do you even miss me, and others like me?

Do you even know what you’ve lost?

Did you ever see my complexity?

Can you ever know yours?

I laugh at your existence as You laughed at my jokes and laugh at my existence

I cannot fathom how you live as you cannot feel how I’ve felt

How are you scared when I’m the one in danger

From people like you and your family

I ask myself if we are too far apart

And I ask myself if others will be writing this poem about me

The white woman past