You Don’t Look Like Someone

[audioplayer file=”https://admin.rattle.com/audio/ChinnSomeone.mp3″]

i am a stranger here

they have put me up in the fancy neighborhood and

when the alabaster white-haired fur coat woman

and her hesitant eyes hold the elevator for me and say

you don’t look like someone who i’ve met before

centuries pass between the someone and the who

and my muscles tense as i arm myself

with explanations for my presence in ~~her~~ the building,

this learned response, survival staple

gray matter imprinted infographic:

“how to keep a white woman from panicking”

i am a guest artist

i’m only temporary

i leave in December

i explain myself (away):

i am not a threat i am not a threat

i am not a threat i am not a threat and

i wonder what else might’ve been

in the canyon between the someone and the who

you don’t look like someone

who belongs here

you don’t look like someone

who inherited all the world

you don’t look like someone

who can pay these property taxes

really you look like the doorwoman

maybe you are her daughter, and forgot?

just a moment ago, our president was black but

you look like the doorwoman and

you don’t look like someone

and there was a moment when, instead of explain, i might have flipped my extensions and YES GIRL i just moved in and girl don’t you know i love it here! i’m never gonna leave, honey BELIEVE THAT! All clean and fancy up in here! where you get a coat like that? i want me a coat like that! girl, we finna TURN UP in this bitch! i’m finna tell my cousin ’bout this place. mmhmm, we movin right on up, you betta look at god ’cause won’t he do it. y’all got some thin walls in this place tho. ’spensive as hell but y’all got some thin walls. you like Biggie? but isn’t the ride always over before you even know what happened?

you don’t look like someone

who

i’ve met before

and only later do i realize—

i could’ve

said the same to her