On Privilege (expanded version of old poem)

1. Definition

It’s an oil,
a white oil,
that gets on everything.

It clumps in dark corners
where it’s obvious
if you put a light on it,
but
spread it
and it becomes invisible,
almost intangible
until you try to grip something.

If you’re born coated with it
you forget it’s there.
The ones who came before you
and know the stuff
teach you how
to work with it, how to make it your friend,
how to make it stick where you want it to stick.
You won’t even remember it’s there
once you get the knack.

It’s no wonder
that you’re insulted when people
calls you “slick”

as they try
to make you see how
it shines so evenly on your skin
while on their own
it’s just a mess of smears and blotches.

No wonder that when you try to touch
those exposed patches,
it comes between you. 

2. The Clean Up

The wells that pump it
are deep.  Pulling up the pipes
is not like pulling teeth:
it’s more like pulling roots.
Long roots. Nearly infinite roots.
Roots that cross the lawns; pull them,
and the lawns come up with them. Roots
that have spread under the roads; pull them
and the roads crack and split above them.

They’re always leaking.
The oil is everywhere, it seems, and people
can’t see it sticking to them.  Scoffers abound
even as they slip and fall on it.

You can’t see it
on yourself either, and it’s so scary to think
of where it has come from.  The depth
of those reservoirs is like unto
the Hell you’ve heard so much about:
there is fire, there is ice, there is
the Adversary who rules it
and oh, he says he loves you, his slick
bastard.  How could you hurt him so
by rejecting his slippery gifts?

He’s not going to be happy,

and neither are you
as you scrub and scrape and
scrub and scrape and are scrubbed
and are scraped.

You will bleed.  There will be
scabs and scars.

3. Aftermath, in brief

I wish I could tell you
anyone really knows what a dry world
will be like,

but at least
we’ll be able to touch and not slide apart,
so we can hold on to each other as we are learning.