Benjamin James Lancaster

I am uncomfortable 
talking about this 

I am a nice man 
want other people

to be happy 
and left alone 
I want to be happy 
and left alone 

I am one of the good ones 

I don't touch 
topics this touchy 
avoid them like a group of black kids 
laughing in an alley 

I smile too much 
am too agreeable 
a nodding bobblehead wanting 
them to know I 
am one of the good ones 
I treat them the way I would 
a hot chick I hope to fuck 
a retarded child 
a grandmother 
on the edge of senility 

my knee- 
jerk reaction 
when people talk in my earshot 
but not in my language 
how rude 
when an accent answers 
my phone call to a company 
my teeth grind eyes roll 
of course 
when I peruse 
the prices of convenience 
store owners 
who don't look like me 
getting jipped 

I am not one 
of the good ones 

I want to stand 
with my fellow man 
on the picket lines of humankind 
physically not intellectually 
in person not in spirit 
in solidarity not in show 

but I am hyperconscious 
of my whiteness 
of my history 
of my privilege         
of my ignorance 
of the bigoted heart beating deep 
inside my brain 
that treats all persons 
who are not this person 
as second class citizens 

so instead of standing I sit 
down with my head buried 
in the sand 

I want to be happy 
and left alone 
and somehow still

be one of the good ones