Poem for my Town

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel from here)

Stinson Beach: 1. a small town in Northern California.

2. a thick vat of white privilege.

Have you seen photos of seabirds in the Gulf covered in BP oil?

Living here is like being one of those birds,

except substitute the oil with whiteness.

Try to survive.

These were my thoughts

—while I was being thrashed in the Pacific Ocean—

even before I was told that

“Africans are monkeys”

and that my black jeans were “faggoty”

by local white men

who spoke in the chummiest of ways.

Men who are most comfortable here,

in this town.

Men who breathe in that oil

because someone once told them it was air.