Cailyn Hansen

white man angry

Originally written sometime in 2021

A feeling like happy sadness—
for a scarless future,
removed from the possibility of life
now. Catastrophic demise?

White men only learn from the pain
of those they oppress.
Guilt does not indemnify.
Intention—
fuck intention if I cry under the whip of impact,
for I cry.

Make your activism palatable
to the white man,
or have bones and souls crushed
under the weight of insufficiency.

Scream. I said—
scream.
No one hears
anyway.

Our voice echoes, longing
to be heard, but always turned away
by corporate bureaucracy
or “imperfect timing.”

“We hear,” they say.
But if they did,
why do I need to keep
shouting?

Why do those in power
get to decide when
it’s convenient for them
to remove the

shackles they placed on us—
while asking us to explain how to unlock them?
Please, bitch, you hold the key. Stop acting
like it’s our fault you hide behind

your own ignorance.
The knowledge of the pain
of my lived experience exists only
because you oppress me so.

You kill me while asking
what you could do differently.
And as I scream
my dying breath, you ask me
to say it nicer.

You feign concern for the
scars on my body,
oblivious that you crafted
the tools that made them.

I am tired.

But to stop means your tools
go on
to oppress
my friends and family